X:Men: Sanctuary
by Kyle Phoenix
Summary: The return of Talisman! Puma, Lifeguard, Thunderbird and Slipstream on the hunt for Xavier. Mature subjects, please review. Plus plenty of slash and erotica throughout that gets explicit. Note: Chapter 27 was revised due to an error.
1. United We Dissent

**X-Men: Sanctuary**

**Issue # 1**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

**"Connections"**

**            "Aren't you a little too young for the X-Men?" Warren Worthington, III said to Danielle Moonstar as she hopped off of her Harley in the driveway.  He was the first to open the door, his proud feathery wings, eight feet high, haloing sun kissed features that made him a cross between Brad Pitt, Robert Redford and a Heaven sent angel.  He was a man worth more than her entire line, saving up for five hundred years, could have deposited in a bank by his 18th birthday and his intelligence had multiplied it a dozen times over since then.  He was a veteran of not only the original X-Men but the Champions, Defenders, X-Factor and even Apocalypse's Horsemen.  His tone and slightly dissatisfied stare suggested that he was both aware of Charles Xavier's call to her and censorious of it.  To him she was still the rail thin teenager who had come up these stairs years ago to be a part of the New Mutants, in his mind a necessary but questionable investment.**

**            Dani took in his stare, helmet off to let free her waist length hair, held to the sides by a headband woven by her thrice great grandmother and handed down to each female child, against her worn leather pants that her mother had worn through four years at Kent State, particularly the fateful day when the bullets flew, and her dead grandfather's Korean war leather bomber jacket.  She'd graduated, not from this school but from the college of life in her own twenty odd years and the eight thousand she could trace her bloodline back to being a woman.  Not the kind she was sure he was used to dealing with but in her opinion the kind that would teach him that his people had been doing this judgment crap to hers for so long that she was always ready, friend or foe to lay down her resume. **

**            "****Archangel****, right?  Mutant powers: wings that allow him to fly.  Not even a high-powered sonic tweet.  You remember me?  I'm Danielle Moonstar, Cheyenne tribe, psi mutant who rips fears and pleasures from minds, created solid objects from thought, lethal psi bow and arrow, burgeoning mystical energy battery, only human to be consecrated into the Asgaardian Valkyries,  see, identify and then subsequently fight the cosmic force white men refer to as Death on a regular basis, trained here and with SHIELD, fought in several Asgaardian wars, avid Louise Erdrich fan, more woman than you'll ever have and probably more man than you'll ever be.  Oh, and all of mine is earned, not dolled out my mommy, daddy and daddy surrogates," she tossed him her helmet and walked up the stairs into the mansion.  "I'll try to keep up with you, Wings.  Somehow.  Someway."**

**            "Good to see you've gotten rid of that chip on your shoulder.  I'll just stand here and pay for all that every white man has done to your people for hundreds of years," he snapped sarcastically.**

**            "You do that.  I'm sure thinking without Xavier or Cyclops is still new enough to you to be occupying," Dani snickered.**

**            Karma was waiting in the sitting room, she jumped up and hugged Dani before her friend could even speak.  "It has been so long!  You look wonderful!"**

**            Dani stood back from her, taking a long gander, Karma was still wearing her green New Mutants graduation costume with a predominant yin yang symbol on her chest.  "Don't you think it's a tad retro, Shan?" she laughed.**

**            "It's served me well over the past few years.  I've made some adjustments to it.  I've been through some changes," she said and her smile dimmed then she quickly changed the subject.  "Have you heard from the others?" Karma asked referring to the other New Mutants, changing the topic that it was obvious  Dani wanted to pursue_.  What adjustments and changes?_**

**            "Occasionally, phone calls and letters.  A little world saving.  I ran with X-Force for awhile," Dani glanced at a corner of the room.  "What's she doing here?!" she balked.**

**Allison Crestmere formerly Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla ****known as Magma in the New Mutants turned around, resplendent as always in a white silk dress, her long blonde tresses draping her shoulders as gold thick as magazines adorned her neck and wrists,  "I was invited."**

**            "Allison, I thought you were out for a buck?" Dani asked snidely.  The last time they had seen each other Dani had been with X-Force and Amara with Hellions, they were on opposite sides and Amara hadn't seem at all coerced.  Her biggest concern had been getting paid for her villainous actions.**

**            "I legally changed my name back to Amara, it was more fitting to my taste.  Though Nova Roma may not have ultimately been real, it was still where I became someone of style and status that I find preferable to my previous existence as Allison before Selene kidnapped me.  And as you put it, I was able to salvage some of my former worth so that I'm not as destitute as I was when I foolishly associated myself with the Hellions.  I also made some mistakes.  Charles and I have come to an agreement," she answered in a slight British accent.  "Selene's influence over my people left me confused for awhile.  I got better."**

**            "Blaming Selene?" Dani asked snidely.  "I'll bet it was Selene.  Or perhaps you're just more like her than you ever wanted to admit."**

**            "Come and find out, Danielle, one day I will take that woman's heart for killing my mother but she is an excellent role model of how to handle the lesser castes," Amara said roughly and her eyes flashed with flame for a second.  All was quiet in the room between the three former friends, each waiting to see what the next move would be when a booming voice from behind ended the stand off.**

**            "Now this is what I call a maturity worth waiting for!" Bobby Drake said as he came into the room in his new X-Men uniform, eyeing all three women appreciatively.  "Damn, you ladies are beautiful.  Gorgeous.  Stylish.  Sexy.  Intelligent.  Love the Easy Rider look.  And Princess Amara?  Magnifique!  Karma, as always a total trooper ready for the good fight!"**

**            "Finally the Professor is coming out with some style," Dani murmured looking Drakes new leather black and yellow uniform with trench coat then shot a glance at Amara.  "Not always taste, but style."**

**            Nightcrawler appeared with a sulphurous bamf in the room, a tray with lemonade and finger foods in his three fingered hands.  "Ladies, welcome.  I took the liberty of preparing something for you all.  You must be famished!"**

**            "Careful, Moonstar likes to bite hands," Warren snapped from the doorway.**

**            "Go clean the bottom of your cage, Tweety.  Come on, Kurt, no brews?" Dani sighed. **

**            "Are you legal?" Bobby asked.  "How about we keep this chit chat clean and sober and me and you head out later for those brews."**

**            "I'm legal for brew and more, ice cube," she grudgingly took the lemonade.  That was Xavier's all over, lemonade while the world was ready for a brew.**

**            Northstar came in next to Prof. X and Dani fought the urge to stand up, to pay him that honor.   He was walking again but she refused to act surprised, to show him too much emotion. They had parted, civilly.  She was here out of honor to her grandfather's word.  Out of respect for what the Professor had taught her years back.  For the peace of mind of learning to control her shifting powers.  But she wasn't going to pretend that there hadn't been reasons that the others in this room didn't know about, things Xavier had done to her secretly, all in the name of his precious dream that had made her stay away so long.**

**            "Thank you for coming," he said, his eyes leveled on Dani for a moment.  She had grown and with a cock of his head he realized that technically she was older than she should be by three years by his count.  She noticed where his observation was going, and gave him a psi reply to not pry.  He complied and without missing a beat anyone would notice went on with his words.  "You ladies hopefully remember Jean-Paul Beubier known as Northstar, formerly of the Canadian Alpha Flight.  He's agreed to join the X-Men, our family as I like to think of it.  I hope that your presence here  means I can persuade you to seriously consider a long term commitment in my offer to be part of the Blue Team."**

**            "Where's Storm?" Karma asked.  "I thought she lead the Blue Team?"**

**            "She did.  She and several of the others have left for parts unknown.  Psylocke, Rogue, Bishop, Thunderbird, Tessa, and Gambit.   On leave of absence."**

**            "They quit?!" Amara blanched, her shock was an outcry from what all the others were thinking.  Those were some of the most loyal ones to Xavier's dream.**

**            "I prefer to think of it as a leave of absence," Charles said with a slight smile.  "In pursuit of other---matters."**

**            "Hence, the call for others," Warren interjected.**

**            "Literally, the B Team," Dani snorted.  "No offense to anyone here, well, maybe you three who have been X-Men but we ex-New Mutants were never ranked high enough to make the All Star X-Men."**

**            "Though I loathe too, I'm afraid I have to agree with Dani.  I don't take to being asked to join the 'B' Team," Amara sighed.  "It's painfully obvious that you're trying to swell the ranks without regard to how it may feel to be called in now when you need us."**

**            "I don't think we were ever considered second stringers, Danielle.  If I understand you correctly," Nightcrawler interjected.**

**            "Kurt, I excluded you, Bobby and Warren, I never got the nod to the X-Men," Dani said bitterly.  "Only Cannonball did.  A real boys club, eh, Professor?"**

            "You weren't ready when you were a student.  Several of you weren't.  You needed time to experience yourself and life and your abilities without the expectation of becoming an X-Man.  Ultimately, so that you could make an informed, adult decision to become one.  As all the others have," Charles said smoothly, having expected this feleing to come up and glad that it could be faced immediately, his voice still calm but it was clear that his focus was on Dani, she was the center of the distrust, the residual anger.  "Now the time has come.  You're needed by me.  By the world.  My I suggest we enjoy Kurt's repast and then move on to a session in the Danger Room to acquaint you all with each other's capabilities and give me a chance to evaluate you as a team.  It's imperative that you be ready posthaste.  Lives are depending on this team going on a mission immediately."

            Karma stood in the center of the Danger Room slowly moving through her warm up exercises, mental and physical.

            "The arm still hurting?" Cecilia Reyes asked from the elevated control booth, they'd met last week when both had arrived at the mansion.

            "Non.  It was an accident, it could've happened to anyone," Karma said referring to their sparring session earlier.  She had taken Cecilia by surprise and gotten a rude force projectile to the arm.  Karma had forgiven Cecilia, silently upset more with herself at being caught so off-guard but Cecilia, still new to the X-Men was awash with guilt.

            "It happened to me," Cecilia said nervously.  "My powers worry me.  I'm new to this game.  Paulie and I are the newest and I'm not exactly here by choice, Bastion ruined my life out there.  I don't like them, honestly, my powers, how they 'Spike'."

            "It's a good code name," Karma said neutrally.  She had also learned from a few days with Cecilia that pity wasn't what the woman wanted.  She simply worried out loud.

            "For a Little Rascal," Cecilia muttered as Archangel, Iceman, Northstar, Magma, Nightcrawler and Psyche filed into the Danger Room.  A moment later Prof. X and Paulie Provenzano came into the control room with Cecilia.

            "I trust all explanations are unnecessary?" the professor said over the loudspeaker then the Danger Room walls shimmered and became a jungle.  "The object is simple, get to the other side of the valley in under five minutes.  All of you must make it for the session to end."

            "If they're the 'B' Team what does that make Doc Cutie Pie and me?" Paulie asked the professor.  "I mean flipping through all them files for days waiting everyone to show up, those pretty phillies down there have more experience than both of us put together."

            "Don't call me that," Cecilia snapped.

            "Okay, Doctor Hotstuff," he grinned devilishly.

            "I'm warning you, goomba," she pointed a finger at him, their arguments already the stuff of legend around the mansion. 

            "At this point, I want you to be observers," Charles said calmly, ignoring their constant bantering.  "Because of your limited experience with the X-Men I want you to see what I am asking you to voluntarily follow.  Should you accept, the others would help you learn the ropes as you go along, as it were, the two of you will be risking your lives the most starting out in such a fashion but trust that the need is there and your potential more than attainable.  For now, watch them, please."

            Sentinels rocketed from out of the horizon and as Magma went hot and Iceman cold, they landed a few meters away.  Some remained three stories tall while others separated into three ten-foot tall opponents.

            "Cute," Psyche grunted as her psi bow and arrow appeared.  She let one shot go and two mini-Sentinels came at her.  

            "Form on me," Archangel instructed.

            "I'm faster, I'll go for the other side," Northstar said and whisked into the air, his words half lost to his speed.

            "Northstar, no!  You think the professor doesn't know that!" Archangel yelled but it was too late, treetops snapped open and tracking lasers and machine guns filled the air.  Archangel was forced to dive low as Iceman and Magma tried to hold off two of the larger Sentinels with ice and lava blasts, respectively.

            "Ladies!" Nightcrawler said, grabbing Karma and Psyche and vanishing in a burst of smoke as several Sentinels converged on their position.  He appeared a few meters away and Karma grinned then vanished.

            "Shan!" Psyche yelled, a moment later a translucent man appeared, wearing Karma's costume though now it was more masculine in design.

            "Tran actually," he smirked and headed off into the jungle.

            "Her brother?  I thought she killed him---absorbed him?" Psyche yelled, covering her back and Nightcrawler's with psi arrows as they ran through the jungle.  Her arrows were more for light sparkles into the Sentinels faces, it required far more concentration for her to make them compose of bio-electrical energy to harm inorganic matter.

            "She did.  He did.  It's why she came back, she's become two people occupying one body.  Hers is real, his isn't.  But he can only remain for a short period and can't access the possession power," Nightcrawler explained as two mini Sentinels came crashing through trees at them.  Psyche dove out of the way as Nightcrawler simply vanished in a burst of smoke, Tran kept going, no obstacles stopping him.  Psyche rolled back to her feet and grunted as the edge of a large Sentinel stun bolt clipped her from above.  She landed hard on her leg, it had been a awhile since she'd been in such a confrontation and when she saw the Sentinel coming to press the attack, she panicked.  A moment later she was airborne, in Northstar's arms.

            "Wow, you're fast!" she gulped, embarrassed at not taking this as seriously as he was, watching out for her teammates.

            "And you're not," he snapped then unceremoniously dropped her to the ground and continued zig zagging through the trees trying to avoid mini Sentinels and lasers that seemed targeted to him.

            "French son of a---!" Psyche grunted but didn't have time to finish as Magma tumbled next to her, dazed, felled by a Sentinel blast.  "That must've hurt."

            "Yes, it did," Magma said as Psyche helped her stand and they started heading towards the far side, the gloves of the new X uniforms protecting her from Magma's superheated body.  Archangel soared over them, closely followed by Iceman.

            "You two okay?" Archangel asked.

            "I am out of practice for mayhem but it's coming back," Magma laughed and then fired a lava bolt over his shoulder, turning a Sentinel into slag that sent it careening to the ground.  

"Hop on, my pretties, we're almost halfway there!" Iceman said as he formed a slide beneath their feet and soon they were sliding behind him.  

"You have to cool your temperature!" Psyche yelled at Magma, "or you'll melt through!"

"I know, cow!" Magma snapped then turned to cover their rear and by expelling more lava bolts but her superheated body caused her to melt through the slide and fall to the ground.  She wanted to summon lava or earth from the ground to propel her but didn't think Xavier would appreciate her destroyed the foundation of the Danger Room to call it up.  She was limited to her ability to generate lava bolts and flame.

            "Keep going, I've got her," Archangel said to the others and swooped back.  "Cool your body temperature, Magma!"

            "I'm trying," she said as he grabbed her arms, his insulated gloves affording him protection from her radiating heat and began to move away from the four Sentinels that were crashing through the jungle after them.

            "Now!" Nightcrawler shouted and Tran changed back to Shan, a rope materializing across an expanse to trip a Sentinel.

            Psyche focused and fired half a dozen psi arrows to the fallen Sentinel causing it to blow up, her psi arrows composed of bio electrical energy as well as psionic.  She let out a Cheyenne war cry when she felt something at the nape of her neck.  A buzzing, a warning.  Her Death sense had become fine tuned over the years, advancing into something akin to a constant warning of danger.  She heard Spiderman had one.  She turned and formed a bow stick in her hands in just enough time to knock Wolverine to the ground with it.  He was moving so impossibly fast that he had rolled with the blow, a slight burn and glancing psi shock from it and ducked back into the underbrush before she got a moment to really understand what was going on.

            Psyche realized that his feral nature had touched onto her ability to psychically rapport with animals.  It was the perfect way to not only track him but give her an advantage against him.  Focusing on an ability she rarely used she was immediately caught by the awareness and then subsequent connection to another.

            "What is it?" Archangel asked as he flew over to her.  Psyche looked at him and for a moment felt an intimacy, a communication of sorts that she hadn't felt since---Rahne, her New Mutants teammate.  Of course, his whole avian mutation was kicking in her empathic bonding with animals.  He cocked his head at her for a second, understanding everything that she did at the same instant, immediately disliking the intrusion and hiding something from her.  Without hesitation, Psyche pushed and found an admiration, an attraction to her and she turned away from him.  It wasn't the time for him to see that it was grudgingly mutual.  Between two teenage girls, the bonding was welcome, useful, but two adults, it complicated their different styles, differing personalities.

            "Where is he?" Archangel asked of Wolverine, having sorted through her empathic sharing and recognized what was going on, what had happened.  He'd been around telepaths all his life, it was a part of the job, he wanted to concentrate on the professor's obvious second test.

            "Brush.  Got a fix on him through my sense too.  He's not alone.  A telepath protected him from my psi connection," Psyche put her mental shields in place, blocking out the flutterings of Archangel, he thought like a bird.  Lofty concepts, zeroing in on something he'd deigned worthy of explanation, she was in his arms and in the air by mutual silent agreement as they tried to spot the hidden Gold Team.

            Karma felt her brother subsiding to the irritating voice in her head that he'd been for years, she'd simply never told anyone.  

            _Your friends are interesting.  Especially Amara.  I like her---appreciation of the darker things in life, Tran laughed._

            _Be silent, Tran.  You've done your part.  Or I might explore the professor's telepathic exorcism suggestion, Shan snapped. _

            _Of course, sister, I don't want us to fail this either.  For our mutual goals.  Tran faded back to the buzzing mental presence Shan had put up with for years and allowed her to focus, having reminded her that they were more against these people than allied as they had a secret agenda._

            She'd noticed Archangel and Psyche take to the air and they weren't headed for the opposite side of the room.  They were too far away to communicate but Shan could tell from her old teammate's body language that a new threat was about.  She felt the push of air a moment before she flattened her body and the optic blast slammed into a tree in front of her.  Karma instinctively rolled and fired small, nearly invisible needles from her sleeves, each coated with a sedative that she sometimes used on opponents difficult to possess, towards where she "guess-timated" Cyclops to have been.  They froze in mid-air, as she had expected, the optic blast having been a distraction to the true threat to her.  Karma lashed out with all of her telepathic might to the telekinetic/telepath behind the power.

            "Very good," Phoenix murmured, telekinetically tossing the needles to the ground and re-doubling her mental walls against Karma's attempt to possess her.  Phoenix had to let her mental illusion of foliage lapse from herself and her husband Cyclops as she pushed mentally back at Karma.

            "To me, my teammates!" Karma shouted over her suit's comm. link, her voice a harsh gurgling as she summoned her reserves to have a final mental thrust at Phoenix.  She felt Tran mentally adding his will to her own, making their assault seemingly building in strength while they both knew it was a distraction.  

            "BOO!" Nightcrawler shouted as he appeared only inches from Phoenix's face.  It was enough that Phoenix didn't sense Nightcrawler as he teleported in front of her, ruining her concentration, normal fright broke her concentration and she stumbled backwards.  Cyclops, only a few feet away, admired the tactic and stoically fired an optic blast at Nightcrawler, who vanished in the same burst of brimstone, his feet never even touching the ground.  An ice blast engulfed Phoenix's head in a block of ice, the sudden weight causing her to fall over.

            Cyclops grimly ignored his wife's harmless predicament and dove into the foliage, several optic blasts covering his hasty retreat.  

            Northstar appeared where Cyclops had been a moment earlier and sucked his teeth.  "Who would've expected him to abandon his own wife?"

            "Have a care, Northstar, Cyclops has been doing this for years," Karma said as she strolled over to him.  Her eyes were flashing with telepathic power, she finally had the stunned Phoenix successfully under her control.

            "I wouldn't have thought you could hold her, all that's been made of the legendary Phoenix," Northstar said and Karma shook her head.

            "I have her body.  She was stunned, didn't want to give up so she fled, left with her astral self.  She's still a threat.  Albeit invisible and limited in her capabilities," Karma said as she caused the red headed Phoenix to stand and telekinetically destroy the ice off of her head.

            "Do we have an extra body on our side or what?" Iceman asked as he slid over.  "I don't like taking out the hottest redhead in town like that everyday."

            "She's useless, it's not like a normal possession where I can access her mind to aid in my control of her.  I'm just running a nervous system," Karma said and let her possession end.  There was a moment of confusion on Phoenix's face and then Northstar abruptly knocked her unconscious by speeding around her so fast that the lack of oxygen made her body collapse.  He was back to his standing position an instant later.

            "Hey!" Iceman protested as he caught his friend before she could fall to the ground.  "We don't have to be so rough."

            "Take a look at the tree," Northstar snapped and Iceman glanced at the pulverized tree that would've been Karma had she been hit by Cyclops's optic blast.  "Not a game like the old days, Drake.  Your friends are testing us for keeps.  Perhaps your juvenile ways are to be eradicated by being on this team and not one where you find comfort."

            "I must agree with him, Iceman.  Are you with the Blue Team in form and spirit or not?" Karma asked.

            "Both," Iceman said with a grin and laid Jean on the ground.  "Let's get the others, I've always wanted to freeze Wolverine a good one."

            "Is this wise, Charles?" Cecilia asked.

            "Excuse me?" Charles was busy studying several video screens of the action below as well as telepathically observing the emotions of the participants. They were performing far better than he had expected.  In fact he could see accelerating the timeline to dispatching them.

            "I know you're not used to being questioned by your students but the new Blue Team isn't exactly ready to be tested against the older, far more experienced Gold Team," she snapped.  "That's freaking Wolverine, Cyclops and Phoenix in there!  Haven't they liked saved the world a billion times over when they weren't beating up Doctor Magneto Doom!"

            "Doctor Doom and Magneto are two different guys, hon," Paulie snickered.  "You might wanna read those study files more closely."

            "Don't help me, Paulie.  And don't call me 'hon'!"

            "I'm quite used to being questioned by my students," Charles murmured.  "Answering all of their uninformed questions is not new to me."

            "Doc Hot Pants has a point," Paulie added.  "It looks like the gloves are off down there and someone's going to get hurt.  I ain't got no love for none of them but that's not how we get down in the Marines."

            "Then go help them," Charles said calmly, staring them both down, daring them to face their fears of live combat.  There was absolute silence in the control booth and then Charles turned back around to the video screens.

            Cecilia looked at Paulie who merely shrugged.  The question was whether or not they were ready, in their own opinions.  She muttered something and Paulie thought to himself that perhaps her two words were better suited for Phoenix and her hubby, he didn't really see Charlie as the get down and dirty boogie kind of guy.  Especially with himself in quite the way Cecilia had intimated.

            Cecilia grabbed up her uniform's jacket and stormed out followed by Paulie.  They were going in.

            Charles smiled, pleased, he knew that they would go.  Cecilia and Paulie were rebels at heart, they needed to join the others as a way to flounce his authority in determining them not ready.  Their unique abilities, force field projection and physical invulnerability respectively, made them the least likely to be harmed but somewhere in their psyches it had made them the most reticent about physical combat.  Easy for him to telepathically remove but he didn't work that way, unless absolutely necessary.

            "My, my Charles, I would think that would be a thought closer to my own heart than yours," she cooed behind him, resting her hands on his shoulders.  The physical touch was her way of showing respect, she knew she was telepathically invisible to him if she wanted to be.  She also knew that announcing herself first was safer that simply sneaking up on him.  Though in a wheelchair, he was far from helpless.

            "Emma," he said out loud though it was unnecessary with the White Queen, a telepath of skill surpassed only by his and perhaps Phoenix's.

            "Perhaps?" she teased as she took a seat next to him.  "I faired well against the Phoenix entity who later went on to consume a sun, Charles."

            "You lost to It," he reminded.

            "But in the end you lost her too, as I remember," she parried.

            "I was thinking of the true Jean Grey," he replied, slightly confused by her choice of words.  "Not the Phoenix entity."

            "As was I, losing Jean," Emma smirked and he got her meaning.  His love for Jean that went far beyond the paternal.  He'd put those feelings away long ago.  Emma was good for picking at the edges of his thoughts, keeping herself behind such formidable shields that he often barely perceived her physical presence.  "Curious, isn't it?" she switched topics so fast sometimes that he wondered musingly if it could be another mutant ability.

            "What?" he enjoyed her games, her teasing, she rarely came out and said anything until she was sure that her targets were wrapped up in her game.

            "Jean chose Cyclops over both you and Wolverine."

            "She never knew about my feelings," it was useless to reprimand the woman on delving into privacies, it seemed to delight her to no end to constantly mess with others.

            "Charles," Emma clucked her tongue," she's a telepath.  My equal.  And like me, a woman.  Trust me, she knew."

            Charles turned his attention away from the training session below and glanced at Emma.  Intrigued and pissed at the same time.  "Point?"

            "Wolverine is all physicality, ferocity, passion.  You are intellect, paternalistic power, a telepath that could show her things that would make her forget you had no legs," she said teasingly, a light telepathic flash of erotica crossing his thoughts at her insistence.  He viewed it quickly and secretly was surprised at her choice of imagery, it was close to his own fantasies.  A good guess or a telepathic plucking from his inner depths?

            "And?"

            "She chose him.  Take away the optic blasts and what is he?"

            "One of the best strategic minds living, I daresay," Charles answered without hesitation.

            "Yes.  But without the optic blasts he wouldn't be here, hence he would've never become such a strategist. The same thing that attracted her to him, attracted you to him.  Hopefully from different intentions---I hope," she teased.

            "Continue," Charles said, if nothing else he found her examinations of those around her fascinating.  Emma readily dealt with the dark sides of psyches that he avoided dwelling upon.  After the matter with Onslaught, he had realized that it was important to have more around him who had the dark bent that was present in Logan, he needed their counter balance.

            "He was so easily influenced by the two of you, to become what you both wanted.  A noble husband, a stalwart leader.  He's the only one of your X-pack that hasn't walked away from you, Charles, isn't he?  Sabbaticals, yes.  Rests, even.  But even in his darkest days he started X-Factor to continue your dream.  Did the poor boy ever have a chance to ever have his own dreams caught in the entangling web of two such powerful telepaths?" she wondered aloud.  "Or perhaps that was your point all along?  To give dear sweet Jean a soulmate whom she would never feel inferior to, one she would never sense influencing her?  I can see why you submerged your erotic feelings, love can wither between student and superior but between her and Scott?  Never.  Any prodding there, Charles?" Emma asked, her tone all ice and conniving.

            Charles shot her a withering glare, she was smiling like a Cheshire cat.  "It often surprised me how long you have survived with both your telepathy and mouth.  I always expected someone to shut one or the other down.  Sebastian Shaw, Selene, Magneto, Jean, me.  Have a care, Emma, your days are still being counted.  A misspoken word at any moment could put you into one of those pesky telepathic catatonias that only a few of us possess the skill to bring you out of.  If we cared to revive you at all."

            Emma kept smiling, letting the threat sit where it was, not even bothering to parry it.  They both knew that she was more valuable awake.  Simple as that.  "I brought the woman we've been looking for."

            "Really?" Charles let his telepathy sweep the grounds in a millisecond.  She was in the formal sitting room.  He could barely sense her.  It was only his years at discerning those who couldn't be sensed by his telepathy that allowed him to recognize the negative space as a being.  A being of immense power.  Of them all, perhaps next to the Phoenix entity, she would be the most challenging student.  "She's angry.  Your doing, I expect?"

            "No, she merely dislikes her responsibilities to people like us.  And unlike the others we can't make our words make sense to her."

            "I've never---!" he was about to defend.

            "Oh, please, Charles, a telepath not subtlety influencing those around him?  Akin to being ambidextrous and writing with ones toes, wouldn't you say?  Isn't that what irks you about the others leaving?  Their experiences strengthened their wills, muddied their thoughts and allowed them to willfully walk away from you.  Who's next?  Maybe even dear sweet, fiery Jeannie one day?  All birds must leave the nest, even with telepathic tendrils trying to hold them firmly in place."

            Charles shook his head with a dark mirth.  The woman had no shame!  "What does it mean when I sit with a once sworn enemy assembling yet another team to face the world's horrors?"

            "That soon the Blob, Toad and Mystique will all be wearing those garish uniforms you keep coming up with," she chuckled.

            Charles laughed, a rare easy laugh with Emma.  With her there were few secrets and all the things he feared were both out in the open and accepted as the norm.  Emma, Jean, Magnus and Lilandra, the few beings amongst the billions his mind had touched whom he felt the luxury of being completely honest with.  "Monitor the skirmish below, I'll go speak with our guest."

            "Yes, Charles," Emma purred, mockingly obedient and seductive at the same time.  The perfect Cheshire cat.  Or psychologist, it was often difficult discerning which she was and when.

            Spike and Paulie stood in front of the Danger Room access doorway, they just had to press the red button and they would be let into a session already in progress.  Both of them were in their blue and yellow training uniforms with the exception that Cecilia had added neck and wrist spikes and a waist belt that contained emergency medical gear.

            "Scared?' he asked her.

            She was about to snap at him when she looked in his eyes.  He was as nervous as she was.  She softened, Paulie was a jerk sometimes but she knew that they both shared the same anxieties at being X-Men and the same resentments of their mutant gifts throwing them into this life.

            "All of them have major experience over us.  Even the ex-New Mutants.  We're rookies.  I don't want to hurt anyone or get hurt," she admitted biting her lip.  "And knowing that Cyclops and his Gold Team are playing ambush games in there doesn't make me feel any better."

            "Yeah, that is fucked up," Paulie smiled.

            Spike smiled, Paulie had a way with words.  "Paulie, when are you going to settle on a codename, I know it's bugging the Professor."

            "He keeps offering the stupidest code names. "Taut"?  What a dumbass name.  Sounds like something Northstar would suggest while watching me walk.  I'm leaning towards Cadaver myself."

            "Cadaver?" Spike giggled.  "That's silly!"

            "Yeah, but it's what I'm hard like and what I feel like I might end up."  She waited expectantly and he looked back at her.  "What?"

            "What?!" she said in mock awe.  "The sleaziest X-Men not going for the obvious twist on that?  Could you actually be taking this seriously?" 

            Yeah, I am.  We're the newbies.  I don't want to go in there and be seen like assholes.  My life is kinda shot too so I need this gig.  I need a place to belong and maybe even do some good.  And if this next part sounds wrong than so what: I wanna kick one of those X-Men's asses.  Just to represent Brooklyn, y'know?  I'm tired of being treated like a retarded stepchild."

            "Wow, Paulie.  That's really cool.  I'm repping the Bronx, let's do this!"

"Besides between my invulnerability and your force fields we're the least likely to get hurt," he grinned.

"I'm all over that," Spike mumbled then reached out and pressed the red button that would let them into a session in progress.

            Dani had to admit that being in Warren's arms afforded them a unique insight into the battlefield below.  With Rahne and other animals, Dani had always been the more mature one, the more dominant personality but with Warren there was a blending, a sharing.  His keen eyesight, was now shared between them and they made and dismissed plans at the speed of thought, his experience tempering her zeal and her determination fortifying his lack of focus.

            "Shan, the Gold Team has got to be setting us up.  I don't trust Phoenix wandering around as an astral body and I can't spot her, which means she's actively hiding from me," Dani said over the comm. Link.

            "I concur.  The Sentinels were obviously a distraction to soften us up while the Gold team got positioned," Shan replied.  "Suggestions?"

            "They'll go for our transports.  Nightcrawler and Northstar," Archangel said aloud, more for Shan's benefit than Dani's as their thoughts and instincts were so meshed. 

            "They set us up by letting us come in here without a full plan, a full awareness of their intent.  Prof. X is still sneaky," Dani muttered.

            "Sneaky?" Warren asked incredulously, their psychic rapport dulling as she clamped down tighter on her thoughts.  "I've never thought of Charles as exactly sneaky."

            "He didn't turn you over to SHIELD for additional 'training'," Dani said darkly then her psi bow and arrows appeared and she opened fire on the brush below.  Optic blasts flew up in the same instance and Archangel realized that she could shut him out while still reaping the benefits of his enhanced sight.  He wasn't sure of how he felt about that but he calmly fly higher, dodging the optic blasts.

            "Distraction again," Dani said as she reached out with her psi talent for animals, searching for Wolverine.  He could hide from a telepath by regressing himself mentally into a more animalistic state but to her he would stick out even more.  When he first sweep of the 'jungle' below showed no signs of him, she started a scan for Phoenix.  Her abilities were so wildcard these days that she didn't know if she could find an astral body so simply.

            _I'm sure you'll be able to one day, a psi voice whispered and then Phoenix's astral self appeared in from of Dani and Archangel.  Once Dani saw her, she realized that she'd been using her telepathic powers to mask Wolverine below, he was only a few feet from her teammates below, poising to attack.  The alarm in her thoughts caused Archangel to reel back, aware that Phoenix was invisible to him but not Dani._

            Phoenix was perplexed for a moment at the strong rapport she sensed between the two and that was enough of a distraction for Dani to swipe her bow and arrow into Phoenix's psi body, similar to being shot.  Dani saw the optic blast a moment before it struck Archangel and felt herself falling for an instant before Nightcrawler appeared and they vanished in a haze of brimstone.

            When they reappeared on the ground, Dani immediately felt Archangel sluggishly landing, and then nothing as Phoenix put him to sleep with a telepathic push. 

            "Looks like Jean has scored one against our erstwhile team," Nightcrawler whispered to Psyche.

            "Looks that way.  And Wolverine is closing in on the other group.  Can you teleport us over there as soon as he attacks?"

            "Not a problem," Nightcrawler said as the two hurried on foot towards their teammates. 

            Northstar was about to take to the air, to find out why Archangel and Psyche's comm link had been disturbed when he heard a familiar feral growl and Wolverine sprung at him from a tree.  Without even a conscious thought, Northstar was twenty feet away in the blink of an eye and almost pleased with himself when he saw that he'd never been Wolverine's original target.  Wolverine slammed into Magma from behind then tossed her at Iceman, their opposite physical states causing a huge cloud of steam as soon as they came into contact with the other.

            Without even a glance behind him, Wolverine was silently and swiftly moving in for Karma who stood next to Phoenix's inert form.  Northstar realized that his super speed allowed him to see Wolverine moving at a normal pace while to the others he must be almost a blur.  With a fierce determination not to be outclassed, Northstar sped to Karma and snatched her out of the way as he spotted Spike ad Paulie rushing through the jungle bush.

            "Spike!  Wolverine is playing opposing side, a little help would be appreciated!" Northstar shouted at her and watched as she reached out her hand and golden energy flew at Wolverine encasing him in a bubble.  

            "Not good enough!" Wolverine growled, popped his claws and slashed through the solid energy leaving shreds that quickly winked out of existence.  Paulie stepped in-between Spike and Wolverine and valiantly decked the diminutive X-Man which stunned him for a moment.  But only a moment as Wolverine swiped his claws across Paulie's chest.

            "NO!" Karma shouted and reached out with her possession power to save Paulie from injury.

            Paulie stumbled back, light scratches on his chest under his torn uniform.  "AHHHHHHH!"

            Wolverine turned back to the hovering Karma and Northstar and leaped at them, fighting her possession with all of his considerable willpower.

            "I can't slow him down!" Karma gasped in frustration as Northstar started flying backwards unbeknownst to him into Cyclops line of sight.  A short optic blast knocked both mutants out of the air but not unconscious as Cyclops ran out from the brush.

            "Always watch your back," Cyclops chided the two groggy mutants on the ground.

            "Take your own advice, mein freund!" Nightcrawler said as he teleported onto Cyclops back, ripped off his visor then vanished.

            "Kurt!" Cyclops shouted in anger, his hands covering his uncontrollable eye blasts.

            Wolverine hesitated, Nightcrawler able to appear anywhere near him, he hadn't heard the re-appearing bamf nearby which meant that Nightcrawler had purposefully reappeared much further away.

            "Ok, lets they that again!" Iceman said as he untangled himself from a dazed Magma and fired two bolts of ice at Wolverine, freezing his claws and forearms in chunks of ice almost as big as the X-Man himself.  Repositioning himself for leverage to use his claws to cut himself free, Wolverine didn't see Psyche creep to Karma's side.

            "Together," Psyche said to Karma as she helped her stand and they linked hands.  Psyche let her psi power reach for Wolverine at the same time that Karma re-doubled her efforts to possess him.  With Psyche fighting for control of his feral side and Karma, his human, Wolverine roared at the invasion then collapsed to the ground.

            "Well done," Northstar said as he sped around Cyclops removing his lungs oxygen and causing him to faint as he had Phoenix.

            "Wow, we beat them," Paulie said in surprise as Spike looked at his chest cuts.

            "Glancing at best.  Either he pulled back or Paulie is even harder than expected," Spike reported to the others.

            "Oh, baby, hardness is not a problem for me," Paulie grinned but everyone could see that it was false bravado, he'd been genuinely terrified when he'd thought Wolverine was seriously injuring him.

            "I guess you should all hurry to the finish line, I'm in no shape to continue this," Phoenix said as she sat up, still physically and psychically worn out.  _Nightcrawler?_

            "Here," the German X-Man said in response to her telepathic call as he reappeared next to her.  He handed her Cyclops's visor and joined the Blue Team as the headed towards the marker.

            "I've hung up my hat, old white man!  I am tired of the monsters, the ghouls, the nightmares, the lost friends and loved ones.  Good and evil have existed for far longer than your precious mutant gene.  I trust in powers whose names you can't even conceive of that life will go on without my wearing spandex to try and save it's current ungrateful, insect-like infestation!" she spat at him as soon as he entered the room.  She stood before him, beautiful, hair swirling around her jeans and denim shirt and hiking boots.  She wore a bandanna around her head.  

_Of course she would, Charles thought to himself, knowing what lay under it._

            "The Reckoning is coming and you'll need allies, one of my students is a Valkyrie, another a priest and well, you've met Emma.  Alpha Flight won't be enough.  You've learned about your mystical roots, I offer knowledge of the flesh being, the mutant body, you inhabit," Charles said simply.

            "You know of the Reckoning?" Elizabeth Twoyoungmen grinned darkly.  "A dangerous old white man, you are."

            "I will stand with you.  I bid my soul to you and those of my noble students, Talisman," he added.

            "I see you realize that not every one who crosses this thresh hold is subservient to your simple harmony dream."

            Charles nodded.  "There are things bigger than even mutant and humankind."

            "Good.  Don't forget that.  I could use time away from Canada, time to learn more about how my powers work and why they work the way they do."

            "Then we're in agreement?"

            Elizabeth seeming haughtier than her young twenties, appraised him carefully, almost condescendingly then gave a short nod.  "Yes.  Actually it'll be a pleasure to be amongst those who aren't as volatile as my former teammates.  It'll be too soon before I see some of them again, especially that snit Northstar."

            "Ahh, yes, about him…", Charles started with a grin.

Tokyo, Japan:

            Anna Reese keyed into her apartment, tossing down her pocketbook in disgust.  It had seemed like a good idea to come to Japan to do her junior year of school abroad but the bartending she did at a karaoke bar was starting to wear on her.  The expensive city and the language barrier no longer seemed wild and exotic, it just seemed like constant work and feeling like an outside all of the time.  Her Japanese was better than most but not as good as a native born and people weren't shy about letting her know that.

            Anna flopped down onto her futon and raised her hand, sparkles dancing from it.

            "Hi, Mom, what's up?"

            "Nothing, honey, just figured I would check in, see how you were," her mother's flickering image said within the sparkles.

            "Work and school, school and work."

            "Well, your reception seems quite impressive, I can see what a mess your place is," her mother chuckled.

            Anna grinned.  "Oooooh, Anan Reese able to create mutant communication links with only genetic relatives.  Yeah, I'm an applicant for the Avengers any day now, Mom!"

            "I think I prefer the International Lawyer track you're on," her mother laughed.  "You look tired and I don't want you getting worn out by this call.  Just wanted to say form me and Dad.  Love you!"

            "My love to you guys too!" Anna said and with a flicker her mother was gone.   At least her mother and father weren't freaked out by her passive mutant talent.  Then again she could only create the holo-links with them and her older brother, they didn't have to worry about her rushing off to save the world in tights.  Though Thor was a hottie, she wouldn't mind meeting him.

            She jumped up, startled as the door open and a man walked in.

            "Don't be startled, Ms. Reese I am Camus and I'd like you to meet my associate," he said casually as I f they knew one another and pulled a gun and shot her.

            A half an hour later she awoke standing on her window sill, twenty stories up.  She wanted to scream but she couldn't.  She was in only a t shirt and slacks and around her throat was a silk scarf, blowing in the wind, a scarlet "c" monogrammed on it.

            "Let's go together," a man whispered to her.

            "Ohmigod!" Anna shrieked.

            "See?  I'm fair.  I allow you to scream and I'll be with you the entire time.  Well, not the entire time…."

            Anna's terror increased as she unwillingly stepped forward and began to plummet.

The Xavier Institute:

            "What in the hell are you thinking?  Do you have any idea what that woman is?!" Dani roared at Charles, she had burst in after a shower and an introduction to Elizabeth.  Her hair was still wet and she was in sweatshirt and jeans, barefooted and clearly upset.

            "A mutant, like everyone under this roof," Charles said calmly, not looking up from his writing tablet.

            "She is more than that, Xavier!  She is----," Dani fumbled for the words her spirit-sight had shown her about the woman, "something that you and your clever mental blasts have no concept of."

            "Then it's a good thing that I have you, a Valkyrie, on hand to protect me and the others should she get out of hand," he said.

            Dani hesitated with her next words, for all of her bluster, she respected Xavier though she was beginning to suspect that his mental powers made him feel superior in a world that had long since grown far more dangerous than even he could handle.  "She has other goals besides being a good little X-Man."

            "Don't we all?" Charles smiled benignly and Dani knew that they weren't getting anywhere.  He was too stubborn and superior, had lead too many wild mares from the fields to his pasture and assumed them tamed.  Her for one.

            Dani left the office wondering if he had always been so manipulative, she'd been so young and impressionable when they'd first met but now she'd seen some of the world.  Made her own way, lived her own life.  Under this roof had walked the omnipotent to the insipid and Dani wasn't sure if she felt responsible to them, for them or a third, dark alliance, against them.  Xavier's dream of co-existent, harmony between mutants and humans was stupid prattle, her own people were evidence of what happened when you let your guard down around the majority.

            She came around a corner and Warren was standing there.

            "Woah, even I haven't heard such a tone taken with the professor since---," Warren started but she raised a hand to cut him off.  His fluttery tickling psychic rapport thoughts trying to coax her out of her anger.  She wasn't sure if he was doing it on purpose but it was damn distracting.

            "I am not some suck-up insipid little mutant flower in a tacky blue and yellow obtuse sack trying to gain his approval!" she snapped, shoved him to one side and went up the stairs.

            "Okay, the first uniforms were a little hard on the eyes," Warren shrugged as he went into the professor's office.  "Charles, next time could you make a limit on how many hotheads you recruit at once?   The current class looks like a street gang."

            "Dani, you mean?" Charles said casually then looked closer at Warren, he was standing with the same bearing Dani had at him only a few minutes ago.  Their rapport, as expected was influencing both.  Charles was pleased, the two needed the balance the other could provide.

            "Elizabeth cursed out Northstar in two languages when she saw him which got Paulie to suggesting several words that caused Northstar to rightfully go for his throat.  Emma put an end to the fight with one of her trademark icy barbs but we can't count on that all the time."

            "Tell me, Warren, what do you really think?  Honestly, if I had a mission who would you lead into the thick of it, right now.  Say six of them?"

            "Dani, Northstar, Bobby, Kurt, Magma and Shan or Elizabeth depending upon the power quotient we were up against.  Why?"

            "It's time to move the Blue Team into it's headquarters and onto it's first mission," Charles said calmly.  "Though you may want to make some revisions to that list initially upon further explanation."

Sanctuary, Australia:

Things had changed.

            Joanna Cargill alias Frenzy formerly Ambassador of Genosha, former member of the Acolytes, personal servants to Magneto, had fallen on hard times.  After betraying Magneto by leading the X-Men into Genosha to oppose him, she'd been persona non grata on the isle nation.  Which had suited her fine.  Well, not fine, she assumed that her credentials would allow her to parlay into a nice government position in the USA.  Unfortunately she was considered a rogue agent, in the best of times there and without Genoshan national sponsorship, she was still wanted on questioning for several crimes she had committed while a member of the Alliance of Evil, lead by Apocalypse.  Charles Xavier had extended an invitation to her to join his X-Men, his teaching staff but Joanna had wanted some time to regroup her thoughts.  It hadn't escaped her notice that she was constantly jumping from mutant patriarchal figure to another.  With some money in both legal and illegal savings she'd taken a taken a literal slow boat to China.  She knew she'd end up back in the mutant game somehow but she wanted some time to sort out who she was---villain or hero?

            Then while relaxing in her stateroom with the latest Walter Mosley novel, the broadcasts of Genosha being razed had come onto her television.  She watched in horror as the entire island nation was obliterated and though she cried for dozens of friends she knew surely perished, she was grateful to be alive.  Her past literally obliterated she'd wandered around the Orient for months, spending money from Genoshan bank accounts that as one of the few living ex-cabinet members she knew about.  Millions were hers now, and securely under her name and control, but she was both bored and scared.  Frightened foremost that some mutant hunting Sentinels would pop up for her and bored at the prospect of living a life of leisure for the rest of her days.  Something about tangling, stretching her mutant muscles made her feel alive.  Reluctantly, she'd chosen the lesser of all the evils she'd been beholden to and called Charles Xavier.

            And that was how she'd ended up in the Australian outback at a ghost town his X-Men had once used as a base half ass repairing it and getting the computer systems up and running.  He had cryptically promised her that he had plans to annex the base.  Fully stocked with food and living supplies, Joanna had poured her frustrations and fears into repairing the town and sitting on the porch of the storefront she'd converted into an apartment for herself, she had to admit it had been good therapy.  It was close to a hundred mile drive to the nearest city and she'd spent the long days in silence except for music she'd broadcast throughout the town's high end communication system.  Her mutant muscles were even tired from starting an irrigation system off of a nearby underground stream.

            Xavier had astrally visited her two weeks ago with the announcement that other X-Men would be arriving soon.  There was the unspoken suggestion that she could stay or leave and so far Joanna had yet to pack.  She liked the town she'd dubbed Sanctuary and even the concept of maybe toying with being an X-Man when the team arrived.

            The sonic boom of an advanced aircraft above her startled her from her thoughts and she shielded her eyes against the sun's unrelenting glare to watch as the ship landed on the other side of the town.  She debated just linking into the comm system and greeting the X-Men that way but if she was going to eat humble pie she would rather it happened sooner and in person, than later.  Xavier would've informed them of her being the town's caretaker though it didn't make any sense why he hadn't at least phoned her to let her know that his precious team would be arriving today.

            Joanna went inside and quickly slipped on the backless and sleeveless bodysuit she'd been wearing during her work.  It was the traditional X uniform without all the garish yellow parts and the unstable molecules were resistant enough for the hard work she'd been doing.  As an afterthought she put on the X moniker belt so that they would know she came ready to be a part of their group.  How she felt about that, she wasn't sure yet.  She'd been so many different kinds of Frenzy in such a short time that she felt another change coming on.  Super villain, ambassador, Frenzy had them all covered.

            It was a quick walk to where the sleek green air ship was landed and Frenzy approached confidently, trying to remember to smile when meeting new people who were going to be her teammates and "friends".  The last time they'd crossed paths, they'd parted as allies, hopefully that good will still existed.

            The side bay door slowly opened and as she approached it the first thing she noticed was the cool rush of air, the town lacked central air conditioning so she hadn't felt it in awhile.  She smiled at the feeling until the rank stench an instant later made her recoil.

            "What the hell----?" she grunted and then her eyes adjusted to those coming down the landing ramp.

            They were most assuredly not X-Men and her life was now officially in peril.

            "Next time you have a gripe, say it to my face," Elizabeth said to Dani as she rounded the corner.

            Dani paused, she wanted to curse the little twit out but she knew what the woman was, represented and her spirit respected that.  "My gripe isn't you.  I know you're not a bad person, it's the casualness with which Charles messes with people, changes their lives.  You have a purpose, a destiny, some of it I see emanating off of you.  I'm just not convinced that being an X-Man is the best use for you," Dani explained calmly as the two walked down the hallway to her room.

            "My destiny?  What would you know of that?" Elizabeth chuckled.  "I don't even know it.  It's all myth and lore and superstition.  I go with the flow personally."

            "I have the spirit sight of a Valkyrie.  I can recognize you for what you are.  And though we're from different tribes, your people's legends aren't unknown to me, "Dani explained, trying not to look directly at Talisman.  Her first gaze of her had revealed wisps of images of animals and demons and Archangels in such a mish mash that she'd kept her mouth shut until she calm herself down with a shower.

            "Charles wants a strong Blue Team, I gather.  He knows that there are many storms coming both mystical and mutant related," Elizabeth said neutrally, she'd been unaware that Dani had been a Valkyrie, which could definitely upset her plans.

            Dani stopped at her bedroom door and looked directly at Elizabeth's face, there was something in her comment which made Dani nervous.  As if she'd just moved a rock that a rattlesnake was hiding under.  And the woman's cool hazel eyes looking at Dani now made her feel like she was being given a warning in some way.

            "Fair enough," Dani mumbled.  "Welcome, Talisman."  She quickly went into her room and closed the door solidly behind her.

            "Feels like old times, eh?" Paulie said to Northstar as the two sat in the kitchen.

            "What do you mean?" Jean-Paul said.

            "Me and you in costume?  X-Men?" Paulie smirked.

            "Hmm?" Jean-Paul smiled as with a burst of speed, in the blink of an eye was in slacks and sweater.  "Thank you for reminding me to change."

            "Woah," Paulie said impressed.  "You ever considered a life of crime?  You'd make a great thief!"

            "I have plenty of lucre from my ski career and endorsements.  Though being outted as both a mutant and gay has considerably lessened the personal appearance requests."

            "I bet they have.  So what brought you back to this nuthouse?"

            "I----I want to do more than I accomplished with Alpha Flight.  There were too many personal connections with them, too many things that made it a chore to be a member there.  Here, I am pointedly welcomed and valued.  It's a change I should've made years ago.  I believe that Xavier's will allow me to accomplish things," Jean-Paul said after a moment's pause, he hadn't intended to speak so intimately to Paulie but he could see that his fellow X-Man, though often brash, was genuinely trying to be his friend.  "And you?"

            "On the lamb from the cops.  What better place to disappear, huh?  Xavier says I make things right as an X-Man and he'll make things right with the cops.  He's got lawyers on it already.  Besides plenty of babes here to be tasted of.  Not your kind of babes, my kind," Paulie winked as Amara came into the kitchen.

            "Don't be so sure," Jean-Paul smiled and Paulie turned up his face in disgust then refocused his attention on Amara as she opened one of the large refrigerators.

            "So tell me, pretty lady--------."

            Amara calmly turned around, her eyes flashing flames.  "Don't, little man."

            There was silence in the kitchen as she made herself a salad then left.

            "That went well," Jean-Paul snickered.

            "Yeah, I thought so too," Paulie laughed.

            The eleven X-Men of the Blue Team sat around the conference room table in the Situations room, Xavier at the head of the table, a schematic of the Sanctuary town on the large screen behind him.

            "…….as you can all see this will be quite the undertaking, which is why your numbers are so much greater than the Gold Team or any other teams.  It will take several of you on revolving duty to maintain the town itself and prepare it as a training facility for summer classes of the students here at the Institute.  A summer camp for the classes, if you will," Xavier explained calmly.

            "Does this Cargill woman know that's what she's been prepping the town for?" Jean-Paul asked.

            "She knows that it is to be an X-Men operating base but with the massive influx of students here at the Institute, I feel it would be prudent to establish a second base.  The attack upon Genosha is evident that a large residence for mutants is a prime target.  The mutant known as Gateway will act as transit along with the Blue Team Blackbird.  This town also affords a bit more privacy than the Institute as well as accommodations and ample room initially for all eleven of you."

            Archangel spoke up, a data pad in his hand.  "Charles and I estimate that with a minimum of four of us overseeing the base itself, we should have adequate dorms prepared for students in six months."

            "So now we're in the construction business.  This I am familiar with!" Paulie smirked and the others laughed easily.

            Dani looked at the schematics, including a highlighted stable section for her steed.  "How does the Australian government feel about this?"

            Shan answered.  "They aren't thrilled but they are starting to have a burgeoning mutant presence on their continent and would appreciate our unofficial assistance from time to time.  It's a perfect space and the Professor and Warren have been able to obtain ownership of the land.  It's advanced computer facilities make it comparable to the mansion."

            Bobby piped.  "On the other side of the planet!  And the desert isn't exactly a place where sexy icemen thrive."

            Amara smiled.  "I on the other hand will flourish there and be able to use my terraforming abilities to their maximum without fear of harming others."

            Charles smiled, "Yes, Amara, that was one of our plans.  Your abilities will cut down the construction time ten fold for the facility we have in mind."

            "I do like the looks of this medical facility, though we won't be putting it to much use, hopefully," Cecilia said looking at a schematic on her data pad.

            "This meeting is twofold.  There's a mutant presence in Tokyo which the X-Men should investigate.  The Blue Team has the capacity to split itself amongst many missions, and this will prove to be that time.  Half of you will stop off in Japan while the rest continue on to Australia.  Which brings us to the issue of field leaders.  Kurt has been working on the designs of Sanctuary for several weeks now so it's best that he lead the initial group there and Warren, the group to Japan.  I hate to leave you all with this on such short notice but your pads have been up linked and I now have a meeting with the Gold Team to attend to.  Thank you all for accepting my invitation to join the X-Men in this international endeavor and I look forward to visiting Sanctuary at some point to see how you're coming along."

            With a polite nod, Charles calmly got up and left the room.

            Warren looked around at the Blue Team and smiled.  "We're on our own from here."

            "Do you think this Sanctuary is a good idea, middle of the bleeding desert?" Chamber asked.

            "The way we X-Men trash the surrounding vicinity, I think it's the best idea to come out of here in a long time," Dani said.  "But I'm a mountain girl myself, I think it's all of you raised in the city who will have the most trouble adjusting."

            "Well, I've been to Australia several times and I enjoy it," Jean-Paul said, his flight making anywhere in the world an easy transport for him.

            "You'll be on my team for this mutant presence in Tokyo, Northstar," Warren interjected.  "Dani, Paulie, Amara and Bobby.  The rest of you will take the Blackbird and all of our stuff down there."

            "Wings, any particular reason for the divvying up along those lines?" Dani asked and Warren grinned at her but a leak from him through their psychic rapport told her he was irritated by the questioning of his authority.

            Why yes, Psyche," he said sarcastically, the rest of us will be going to a Hellfire Club party and I have membership but Nightcrawler and Chamber's physical appearances won't pass butter, Cecilia and Shan have computer and organization skills to get Sanctuary up and running and as there is no mystical angle to this mutant, Talisman isn't as needed.  Any other questions?"

            "Ouch," Paulie muttered.  "The tension between the two of them can only be worked out in one wayyyyyyyyyy……."

            "Shut up, Paulie," Cecilia  snapped.  "Thank goodness you'll be a continent away."

            "Yes, lucky for you, not the rest of us," Jean-Paul muttered.

            "Why are we going to a Hellfire Club gala?" Amara asked, the thought of running into the Club's Black Queen, Selene paramount in her mind.  They had a score to settle.

            "Seems there's a mutant serial killer targeting them.  Charles got word of it through his network.  As the Hellfire Club isn't officially "out" as having mutants, we'll be providing pseudo-security for them," Warren explained.

            "We're helping the Hellfire Club?' Dani balked.  "Is there anyone we're not in bed with these days?"

            The whole conference room went silent and Dani felt a mirthful feeling through her rapport with Warren as she blushed uncontrollably realizing what a huge pun she'd just tossed out into the room.

            "Too easy," Paulie said. "I don't do the easy ones."


	2. Descent in Hellfire

X-Men: Sanctuary Issue # 2 By Kyle Phoenix  
  
International Resource Center, Paris, France:  
  
Not as imposing as the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building, the French locale had imparted a stylistic look to the first ever center for the compilation of crime from the entire planet. More importantly and to Warren, Jean-Paul and Dani's purposes, it had set up a division specifically designated to the investigation of superhuman crimes. While ACLU and civil rights laws in America banned such an autonomous agency, by holding its headquarters outside of the United States and acting as a research agency, the IRC could advise law enforcement agencies all over the planet. However the one precursor to such broad information exchange was that it was available to everyone, to any citizen with a legitimate reason for query. Warren had lobbied hard with several of his political friends in the states as he couldn't give a direct financial donation because he felt that the Center should provide an unbiased legal facility should mutants need legal help. The provision of a legal resource center and a fund to hire legal representation had been the one point he had unrelentingly pushed on and achieved in his backing of the IRC.  
"This is most impressive, Worthington, and in France, no less. That does add a bit of class to the whole set-up," Jean Paul said as they waited patiently in a conference room.  
"It was going to happen eventually, a law enforcement bureau exclusively dedicated to super humans, particularly mutants. Putting this into place may not stop individual countries from creating them but it will give us an in as to their work," Warren answered, forcing himself to be calm, they were all dressed in conservative suits and had been treated politely by the reception staff but Warren seemed on edge.  
"I take it you're worried about this mission?' Dani asked, tugging at the collar of her prim silk blouse. They'd all agreed that though it was known they were X-Men it was best to arrive extremely low key. To that end Dani had acquiesced and was in a pants suit in a dull brown collar, her hair tied into a single severe braid, she felt like all of the repression of the Xavier Institute had reared up into one ugly outfit for her less than a week after rejoining. But her discomfort was passing; it was evident in his slight scowl and slight mental discomfort that Warren was deeply concerned.  
"X-Men missions have remained clandestine for a reason from the beginning. Sometimes we find scenarios that aren't as black and white as judicial systems make them. I got a lot of my suggestions incorporated into the set-up here but acting as a liaison to the X-Men makes me feel of dual allegiances. One day that double edged sword will nip me in the ass," Warren admitted as the doors opened and two men walked in. Both looked like Federal officers, dark suits and trim haircuts but it was clear that they were from different agencies. The Asian man bowed politely to the X- Men while the other man warmly shook Warren's hand, smiling.  
"Tom, you old dog, I see you finally got them to let you come over here full time!" Warren grinned then introduced his teammates. "Tom Calendula, Danielle Moonstar and Jean Paul Beaubier."  
"Pleasure to meet you both." Tom shook both of their hands then gestured to his the man alongside him. "This is Natsume Shikibu. From Japan's equivalent of the FBI. Each country is trying to have a rep here so as to avoid problems by having a national representative and agency go to person," Tom explained. He was a tall ruddy man who was clearly from the Midwest with his All American looks and bright blue eyes that complimented his gregarious nature. Shikibu on the other hand was a thin man with calm brown eyes who only nodded to Tom's words, neutrally.  
"It is a pleasure to meet the acquaintance of the X-Men," Shikibu said, his voice low but firm. "I am aware of your reputations." There was brief quiet in the room at that neutral compliment which wasn't elaborated on, positively or negatively.  
"I also see that the X-Men you brought along are the ones with Canadian government and SHIELD security clearance," Tom winked at Warren as they all sat back down around the table. "No Rogue? No Gambit? Warren, you're learning how the game works, eh? Not that I would press taking them in for questioning as some agencies would have us do on sight of some of your groups associates."  
"The X-Men in all of our incarnations have members of less than reputable pasts. Prof. Xavier and I hope that I can spearhead a more international and law enforcement accessible group. What you see here are the core members of that off shoot," Warren said carefully.  
"Excellent spin," Jean Paul said dryly and everyone in the room laughed politely.  
"Down to business, we got a nasty one here, folks," Tom said then took a remote control out of his pocket and clicked on the wall monitor. "The mutant known as Channel has never been directly photographed, nor do we have any fingerprints or physical description on him. What we do have is crime scene photos and several emails from him to the Japanese FBI."  
"Taunting us to capture him," Shikibu added and it was obvious that he was holding in his anger.  
"He's killed seven people so far that we know of and we have two fresh crime scenes of his still under lockdown in Tokyo in case you want to take a look when you get there, Warren." Tom slowly flicked the remote and pictures of seven faces flashed onto the screen, five men and two women.  
"All mutants?" Dani asked and Shikibu answered.  
"Yes, from DNA scans they are. Four of the victims were the Murasaki family----low level precogs with an ability that obviously passed from the parents to their two children. The abilities were manifested as high aptitude scores for the father, the mother did Tarot card and I Ching readings and the two children both excelled at sports because of their ability to anticipate their opponent's moves. This correlation was only noticed upon investigation after their death. To their friends and neighbors they seemed like a perfectly normal family who simply were instinctually gifted. Our parapsychologist forensic expert says that their abilities would have remained low level for the course of their lives and never been of substantive value," Shikibu explained.  
"Or your government would've rounded them up?" Dani asked, clearly reading between the lines of what he had so carefully and precisely explained.  
Shikibu stared at her with that same impassive, neutral expression then nodded. "All first world governments have means to keep themselves alerted to the presence of mutants. The Murasaki's posed neither substantive value nor threat to my country."  
"Moving on," Tom interrupted. "Then there were three American victims: Sean Tanenbaum, an Israeli citizen in Japan with his wife on vacation. Upon further questioning of Mrs. Tanenbaum and their friends and family it seems that Sean possessed several advanced degrees in science obtained within five years after his twenty-first birthday though he showed very little aptitude in high school. He worked at a pharmaceutical company in Tel Aviv and though the Israelis are being circumspect, we suspect he had the mutant ability to produce drugs. A man of less than thirty with a worth of close to fifteen million is not from just being the best chemist in the room. "The last two victims are what helped us to put together a definitive trail and target. Anna Reese and David Lamb, both Americans working in Japan, Tokyo specifically though Mr. Lamb traveled often. Ms. Reese was working her way through her final year of school, an exchange program from NYU and Mr. Lamb is an executive with Shaw Industries. We back tracked and Mr. Murasaki was an employee of Ion Digital, a subsidiary of the Yashida Group and Shaw Industries and Mr. Tanenbaum's company has a twenty percent stake in it by Shaw as well."  
"Mr. Shaw, upon questioning of possible connection, admitted receiving several email threats and has promised to increase his personal security. He specifically asked though of the Center that if the threat were from a mutant that we reach out to the X-Men for their aid," Shikibu added.  
The three X-men knew that Sebastian Shaw was the Black King of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club, premiere enemies of the X-Men for years and a powerful mutant himself. Why he would ask for their aid was a mystery, surely he couldn't fear one lone mutant killer?  
"How were the victims killed?" Dani asked.  
"Mr. Murasaki killed his entire family and then himself. Mr. Tanenbaum attacked several patrons at a restaurant, holding them hostage for two hours. It looks like he tried to escape and then hung himself in the basement of the surrounded restaurant when it was evident he couldn't escape. Reese jumped off of her balcony and David Lamb strapped twenty pounds of C-4 to his chest, walked into a meeting full of thirty of Shaw Industries top executives and pushed the button. It was common knowledge that Mr. Shaw was to attend the meeting but then had a previous engagement so it was a message to him, not a direct attempt on his life. At the scene of each crime is a black silk scarf with an embroidered "C" for Channel on it and of course his emails to the police describing the murders in detail from the inside of the crime scenes," Shikibu explained.  
"Channel is some sort of telepath then who can physically control his victims and bend them to violent acts and then suicide," Jean Paul summarized. "Why he's doing this in such a grandiose fashion seems to be something he'll probably rant at us during our battle with him. They always rant at the end, you know."  
Tom chuckled. "That's what we believe. His emails to us promise that he will kill Sebastian Shaw within one calendar month. Logistically to hide Mr. Shaw for an entire month is impossible with his schedule especially since we're dealing with someone who can be present and kill with his thoughts. Therefore Mr. Shaw has refused to amend or change his schedule in any way. He says that he's confident you X-Men at his side will keep him safe. His next public appearance will be at a gala dinner in Tokyo tomorrow."  
"The X-Men will be there and we'll capture Channel and turn him over to the Japanese authorities," Warren promised.  
"That would be most appreciated. I will see to it that there are suitable arrangements made for his detainment. Now if you'll excuse me," and with that Shikibu left the room without even so much as a backward glance.  
"Who shoved the bug up his ass?" Dani muttered.  
"Natsume is a good guy. Helluva of cop, citations up the whazoo from back in Japan but you have to understand, you super types come in after the carnage. We're there picking up the pieces, seeing what new heights super powered maniacs can take murdering too. It hurts that all we're starting to become now is reporters and photographers, hoping that you or the Avengers or Spiderman even will stop these lunatics. It's frustrating," Tom said tiredly. "The IRC is suppose to level that field out, give us more access to agencies around the world. Merge our databases and increase our skill set. But here we our, our first big threat, calling in the X- Men. That stings a cop. Particularly one with so much honor and integrity built into his culture."  
"Mr. Shikibu should try launching his body into these frays against lunatics and would be world conquerors. I'm sure a few rounds with someone like Magneto would open his eyes to the fact that he might enjoy being benched every once in awhile," Jean Paul snapped.  
Warren spoke up, seeing the debate could only lead to ruining a good relationship. "We'll do our best. We'll leave this evening on my jet. Thanks, Tom, we'll stay in touch."  
  
"We don't have all day, Amara, if you want to go see Paris. The others will back this evening and then we're oput of here!" Bobby yelled at the closed bedroom door.  
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Amara snapped then whipped open the door and Bobby actually heard Paulie stumble over a chair behind him as they looked her get up. The skirt was long, almost to her ankles with casual sandals but she only wore a bikini top with it. She had a pink blazer hung over her shoulders, her hair pulled back severely and huge shades on.  
"Goddamn, girl!" Paulie grinned.  
"You know, Amara, it wouldn't it wouldn't be rude if you put on say a blouse of a t-shirt or hell even a large necklace to cover your----uh----- uh----cover those---you know," Bobby blushed. He could remember when she had been a teenage girl a few years ago at the mansion when she wa sone of the New Mutants and now she was------Charlize Theron came to mind.  
"This is summer. I am appropriately dressed. Are you two going to trot along after me or will I have to call the concierge for a nanny?" she snapped.  
"A nanny?!" Bobby balked. "Hey, young lady, we're your chaperones, nto the other way around. Don't get it twisted."  
"However," Paulie interjected with a grin, "if you would like to chastise a bad boy like me, I may not feel the spanking but I will appreciate it."  
"Gods help me," Amara muttered and pushed past them and out the door.  
On the elevator, Bobby tried to remian nonchalant as he pulled out a folding map. "So where will it be? The Louvre? Eiffel Tower? A nice sidewalk cafe to wile away the day?"  
Amara took out a platinum American Express card. "Let's see how much damage we can do to this," she suggested.  
"Uhhhhh....isn't that your school card, like we all have, strictly for necessities and emergencies?" Bobby said, seeing where this was going.  
"You realize of course that while I don't know much about Roman history, I am willing to be like your Caesar or Marc Antony, you are so my kinda girl?" Paulie grinned.  
Amarapushed them both against the wall, leaned in close and spoke in a low husky voice. "Let's get a few thing clear...."  
Paulie looked down at her supple chest. "Man, my nose ain't as clear as-----."  
She cut him off. "I am back in this mutant circus to get my life back on track. By life, I mean my future. Drake, you've spent your whole life doing this and Paulie, Gods know you have no other options or skills."  
"Hey!" both men said in unison.  
"Silence!" she barked then returned to a husky whisper. "Now, in a few hours either Warren or Dani, in primary Xavier leader mode, will call us on one of our cell phones announcing that we are to return to a grand suite, that I didn't even get a decent chance to enjoy, to grab up our overnight bags to launch ourselves head long into another meaningless mutant brawl."  
"I wouldn't call them meaningless.....," Bobby said thoughtfully.  
"Now those I would call meaningful in fact," Paulie appraised, his eyes still admiring the view.  
Amara's arms next to each of their heads flashed molten as a threat.  
"Silencing."  
"I like quiet."  
"I will shop. I will use this credit card to purchase myself a wardrobe befitting a woman of my standing who is after going to yet another mutant fisticuff will be permanently living in an abandoned Australian outback town. Now the two of you can follow me, perhaps even hold a door or two, learn to carry my packages like good vassals. I might even feel charitable enough to ignore you inane chatter about me that you two juvenile clods insist upon bumbling through but if either of you try to stop me, I will throw a temper tantrum that with include an seismic event like this continent hasn't seen in centuries. The Sanctuary team is large, we can spare two of you if you were oh, laid up in the hospital by said hypothetical event, I think. Have I made myself clear?"  
"That would be crystal."  
"Waterford, even."  
"Delightful," Amara said and gave them both a beaming smile then returned to normal as the doors opened in the lobby. She stepped out, her cares gone for the next few hours and an unlimited credit line in her hand. It was a good day.  
  
San Madre, Argentina, South America:  
  
It was unusual for the town to be so queit. But David was turning twelve today and he knew that was a special day. For such a small village to celebrate each child's birthday was a wonderful thing and today was his day. It hadn't always been this way. In fact he could remember back to when he was eight or nine that the custom had started. That was when the changes had come. When San Madre had stop working for the sugar cane factory eight miles away in the fields that everyone over fifteen worked for. There had been a time when teh only to look forward to was when a boy or girl turned fifteen so that they could go to work with their parents and be recognized by adults.  
Then the Change had come. That's what the other children David's age called it. The Change when what seemed like overnight the town refused to work in the fields or the factory. There had been visits from the bosses, threats but the townspeople stood calmly, and as one, sai dthey would not be returning. The Holy Sister who ran the new church had organized them to rebel and promised that they be able to feed their families if they trusted her. And they had. Not at first, David remembered but within a night, they were her followers. There was food and constant work for the adults, all day and all night it seemed like. But the children only noticed briefly and didn't have time to care as life didn't change. Everyone just went in shifts to do work at the Church. In a village that had been forsaken by the sugar factory when they refused to show up, they had become invisible, travellers even comign to the town and staying.  
There was always a place for a new person.  
Some of the parents had worried but then they went to the Holy Sister and came back calmer, ready to work for her. It seemed strange to David because his Poppa had been so proud of being a foreman at the sugar factory but what little boy noticed meant little as long as everything was going well. Soon the town swelled, more and more people filling it up over the years, all working together for the Holy Sister, all having plenty of food and money and bringing in more and more supplies. The trucs that had only come once a week to San Madre started coming every day and then soon San Madre had bought it's own fleet of trucks to bring in all kinds of things, metal things, David saw from his bedroom window.  
But the ways of adults were strange, perhaps this is just how things changed, had always changed, what did he have to compare it to? His parents and older brothers and sisters were happy so he was happy.  
Most of the other children were babies or his age and older but there were no new babies. He had remembered that seeming odd. As long as he could remember before the Holy Sister had come, his cousins or older siblings were always having babies but no more. That was strange, now that he thought about it. In fact, he even felt a little scared and the air smelled funny. He felt dizzy in the humidity, he hadn't eaten his breakfast that morning because he'd been so exicted about coming to the Church at exactly four o'clock. Everyone patted him for months leading up to now and told him what a contribution he was making, how special he was, how good he was. All of the other children that had turned twelve or were older now worked in the Church. Turning twelve meant you were allowed not just inside like for the Sunday services but downstairs into the part where everyone worked.  
David wished he had eaten. He was feeling so dizzy and the Church was so close that he didn't want to look lke a baby and throw up or faint before he got there but there was an overpowering stench all around him. Like sewage or like the time his grandfather had slowly died in the other bedroom, a rotting smell. But how could the whole town smell like that? The adults woudl know. They would've fixed it. It they were otu that is. Which none of them were. Flatbed tricks were parked quietly by the sides of the streets and stores were closed in honor of his birthday.  
And for the first time that seemed strange to David. All the anticipation he had built up for this day seemed.....weird. Forced. Everyone else was happy for his birthday to comebut somewhere deep inside he had dreaded it. This was different from going to work at the sugar factory when you were fifteen.  
This was wrong.  
David stopped in his tracks. His head feeling distinctly clearer after the wave of nausea passed. Everything seemed strange to him. The taste of his food seemed strange in hidsight to him now. Nothing tasted right. Had tasted right in a long time. But it was all the same food as always, right? It was all so confusing. He wished he had someone to ask but all the children twelve and older worked in the Church and were always consumed with their work, never wanting to be with the younger children. That seemed strange now too.  
The huge white church, taller than any other building in San Madre didn't look right now. It was almost four stories high and a glistening white but it seemed.....wrong. How long had it seemed wrong? All these past Sundays he'd come to it, gone inside and.....? David couldn't remember what he did inside the Church. What did he do inside the Church? What did anyone do there? His Poppa, his Momma, his brothers and sisters? Everyone in the town? What did they do in there?  
A spark, a connection, a deep understanding.  
He hadn't eaten his breakfast this morning was why he was having all of these questions. Something was wrong! Something was very wrong. He looked around him at the empty streets, the closed windows and saw the faces watching him. They'd been there all along hadn't they while he'd trodded towards the Church. All of them just silently watching.  
The Church doors swung open and the Holy Sister came out.  
But her face was lighter than his like an anglo, she wasn't in white like he had dreamily thought before. No, this time she looked different. She looked twisted.  
"Come, David," she smiled at him.  
And the smile, the corners of her mouth going up, her white teeth gleaming in the sunlight made him scream. He screamed at her smile because he knew that her happiness was his death.  
  
Shiners Twon, near Ayers Rock, Australia:  
  
Peter was tired. Not so much from his journey fromthe beyond but at his confusion, at the constant sense of not being sure he was doing the right thing. That coming to this land, seeking out people who had once been his friends but probably thought him dead was a good idea. Though he knew returning from the dead and the Beyond was an X-Men specialty.  
He got off of the bus that has brought him this far, locked around the small town and wondered if they would be able to help him. His directions were off. He couldn't find the X-Men's town. He calmly walked past dozens of Aboriginal families who just watched him with baleful eyes, eyes that had seen much in this world and the dream world not to be surprised by the young man. Peter had left his hair long after returning from the Beyond becaue he just felt more comfortable that way, liked the way it cushioned his head when he laid down to sleep. His body had lost some weight since coming from the Beyond, from all of the travel and lack of food. He would have to pay more attention to his physical needs rather than just rushing into trying to find the X-Men.  
Coming upon a general store, he walked in confidently and smiled brightly at the man behind the counter and the woman who was stirring a soup on hot plates in the corner. Though the store wasn't as packed with luxuries as the one's Peter had seen in Sydney, he liked it more. Basics. That he understood from growing up farming. Fresh fruit and vegetables and staples like grain and such made him yearn for his mothe'rs garden back home, the delicious meals she had sewn and reaped from the earth.  
The medium height Aboriginal man looked up at the impossibly handsome young man who stood well over six feet but seemed to have such a genial twinkle in his eye and warm smile. A gentle giant, the man thought.  
"Hello, my name is Peter," he introduced himself and shook the man's hand.  
"'Ello, Pete. I'm Dave and that's Emelda. Take it you came in on the jaunter?" he grinned.  
"Jaunter? Oh, you mean the bus. Yes, yes, I did."  
"Most people just pass through."  
"Pass through what?" Peter asked curiously.  
"Shiners. Here. The town. A young fellow like you should be in one of the cities being a model with a mug as pretty as yours," Dave teased.  
"Oh, that's because of the metal. The constant affect on my skin causes asymmetricalness."  
"What metal?"  
"In me."  
"Ah. Metal. I see. Iron acting up in the blood?"  
"No. Not iron exactly."  
"Uh huh. So what can we do you for, Petey?"  
"Well, I'm lost."  
"I'll say," Emelda said from the hot plate then stared calmly at both men when they turned to her. "No one comes to Shiners who ain't born here or got folk here."  
"Emelda is right on that one."  
"Oh, my family isn't from here," Peter smiled.  
"The accent was a dead giveaway," Emelda chuckled.  
Peter laughed too. "I don't even notice it anymore."  
"Long as you're clear enough," Dave nodded.  
"No, no, the metal doesn't make my body clear," Peter corrected.  
"Back to the metal are we?" Dave said perplexed but enjoying the circling conversation and pleasant young man. People were milling about the doorway to watch and listen to the stranger. Strangers were great fun.  
"How can we help you?" Emelda asked pointedly.  
"Well, the soup smells good," Peter said honestly. "Could I buy some?"  
"Of course," Dave said and nodded at Emelda who took a large mug down from a shelf and ladelled the young man some food.  
Peter nodded gratefully and reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a fistful of shiny dollar coins. "Sorry, I don't have paper money. But I made these in the Beyond."  
"Of course you did," Dave laughed as he looked at the American silver Dollars. "Lucky for you we got an exchange place here in town. We accept American."  
"Oh, I'm not American."  
"Not with that accent," Emelda pointed out.  
"The soup is delicious, thank you. Could you also help me find my friends? Well, actually they're more like family," Peter asked.  
"If we can, Petey. But with that accent and them looks on your mug, I doubt your family is from here," Dave said.  
"They're the X-Men, they're very famous."  
Dave nodded at the name. "That they are. We got CNN out here, we know all about the mutant issue."  
"Really? Well, I'm looking for the X-Men, they lived around here in a town awhile ago and now I'm here to find. This is where I remember them being. Can you help me?" Peter's face was so guileless and his eyes so trusting that Dave felt a sense of protectiveness towards the young man.  
"I'll try. I know of who you mean but I don't know where they're at."  
"Then you can call Kitty."  
"He has a cat?" Emelda chortled.  
Peter shook his head. "No, no, not that kind of cat. Katherine "Kitty" Pryde," he took a crumpled up piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to him. "She knowsme. She's in America but I couldn't get there. If you call her, she'll know how to help me. But you have to tell her that it's Peter Rasputin from the Beyond or else she won't think you're for real."  
  
"Now this is the life!" Paulie said as the flight attendant aboard Warren's private 747 handed him another glass of champagne. He gave the young woman a bright smile and she rolled her eyes and went back to the front cabin.  
"It has its perks," Warren mumbled, adjusting his tailored tuxedo jacket, with his wings strapped down it was always an awkward fit. He was also concerned about leading a team where with the exception of Bobby, he only knew these people from occasional meetings and computer files.  
"Yeah, Warren does live the high life, all right," Bobby agreed from the table where he and Jean-Paul were playing cards.  
"I will admit it is certainly better accommodations than my days with Alpha Flight," jean Paul said.  
"Hey, JP, I read about your Canuck team, what kinda shit was that? You guys were like inmates running the asylum," Paulie laughed.  
Jean Paul turned to face him and was about to snap when he saw how interested his new teammates were in his answer. He paused and regrouped his thoughts. He had made a commitment to the X-Men, to being a team player for some of the very reasons why Alpha Flight hadn't worked. He wasn't as saccharine in his feelings as feeling the mutant outcast in the world and wanting to belong. He was rich himself, nowhere close to the stratosphere of the Worthington fortune but certainly enough to last him an affluent life. And the whole row about mutant rights and peaceful coexistent weren't paramount in his political concerns but somehow getting it right, being a member of a team, helping young mutants was important all of a sudden. Or maybe the Alpha Flight had never had a specific mission other than protecting Canada whereas the X-Men were more personal in their commitment regardless of national borders.  
"Alpha Flight's infrastructure wasn't as steady as the X-Men's after Guardian died..the first time. And times have changed and I've found myself wanting to explore new things. New affiliations," he said then returned to shuffling the cards at super speed, his mood was dark and it was obvious that he didn't want to speak on it anymore.  
"Well, if this is how the X-Men live then I'm signed up for life!" Paulie laughed then sank back into the plush seat, stretching in his custom tuxedo. "First class travel, tight threads and babes getting ready in the back---who could ask for anything more?"  
"Paulie, you're new to this scene. You've only got the Magneto fight under your belt, you might want to tone it down a notch. It's not all this high class living, you know. Our Sanctuary base is in the middle of nowhere in Australia, not exactly a resort," Bobby reminded.  
"Whatever, ice cube, I was working the streets doing all kinds of jobs while you were sporting the snowball look. I got moves and experience that I know this team could use a taste of. Why else would Xavier call me in?"  
"Pity?" Bobby deadpanned and Jean Paul chortled.  
Warren walked over to one of the windows and stared out into the midday sky, his thoughts taking a dark turn as he calculated how long it would take them before they got to Japan. He had confidence in his teammates, even in his ability to lead but the death of sixteen million in Genosha, the political wranglings that the IRC had taken to construct and more importantly the prejudice Shikibu had shown them, worried him. Not every battle could their powers overcome and it was starting to look like the world, or more specifically humans, were gaining a foothold in getting rid of mutants rather than figuring out new ways to co-habitate with them. Killers like Channel scaring the hell out of people wasn't helping either. As much as he despised Sebastian Shaw, Warren could see Prof. X's push for the X-Men to protect him publicly. Mutants sorely needed some good press these days.  
Chill out, Wings, you're making me nervous too, Dani said through their psi rapport that was fixed due to her mental connection to anything of an animal nature.  
So now you're getting full thoughts? Warren thought to himself, having known Phoenix for so long and then dating Psylocke, he was accustomed to women knowing his thoughts. He sensed that Dani found it more of an intrusion than he did and he laughed to himself as he had measured her moods of shutting him out periodically over the past few days.  
My connection to you is stronger than yours to me. Which means you broadcast and I spend a lot of time editing your flighty thoughts from my own. Relax, Warren, we've got a good group here and Kurt's team in Australia should we need backup.  
You know the Hellfire Club as well as I do, Dani, these missions always go awry, particularly when we're going in to stop a mutant serial killer. I don't want anyone getting hurt, he thought and for a brief moment his thoughts drifted to the dead Betsy Braddock. The grief came back and Warren almost succumbed to it but this time there was a presence with him, Dani shining in his heart, not unlikely being in love. Being connected to someone.  
I know much about death, Warren. Trust that she's at peace, Dani assured.  
"That is a good color on you with your hair," Amara said in one of the private staterooms on the 747 as she and Dani changed for the party.  
"Wha---? Sorry, I was lost in thought," Dani mumbled as she looked at the slinky black dress she had been holding up to herself in the mirror. She gently closed Warren out again, their rapport was both infuriating and delightful in its intimacy. In so many ways he was closed off from sharing his deepest feelings with anyone behind his mask of being a playboy and bon vivant. And she...well, she hadn't made a lot of time for attraction and romantic intimacy over the years.  
Amara twirled around in the golden lame dress that looked like a second skin on her. "What do you think?"  
That I hate the voluptuous super model you've turned into, Dani thought sourly but smiled, it was a beautiful dress and her one time friend did look amazing in it, the spaghetti straps barely holding in what she lovingly called her truest volcanoes.  
"It's amazing that Warren knows so many designers to have these one of kind dresses ready for us on such short notice," Dani said looking at the racks they had to choose from.  
"Rich doesn't look so bad, eh?" Amara chuckled and sipped a glass of water.  
"Rich doesn't impress me as it does you."  
Amara shook her head, "Not impress. Miss. I miss it. I know that sounds shallow but it hasn't been easy finding out my whole life was a whim of that bitch Selene. I'm by no means poor but she robbed me of what I thought I was, could do. This, Warren's wealth used to be a shadow compared to mine and now I am but a speck compared to his. Because of that woman's manipulations. I don't even want to discuss losing my homeland, my memories, my whole life torn asunder so that she could re-create days she missed thousands of years ago. And my mother, Dani, it was never cleared up exactly why and how she was responsible for her death. Allison Crestmere is an orphan, her family vanished with her years ago. All I have left is the illusions she gave me. And for that life rape I am eternally her enemy."  
"Is it going to be a problem if she's at the party?" Dani was concerned about the history between the two women becoming violent in person; Warren had relayed the same anxieties to her earlier.  
"No, Danielle. I can and will control myself unless she steps out of line and tries to harm one of us. In fact I may have a surprise or two for her myself," Amara said then turned back to the vanity table to finish her make-up.  
"Meaning?" Dani turned, completely focused with alarm now.  
"All the times in the past I've met her, I was a girl. My Nova Roma father's little girl. A young thing awed at the modern world, all will and class but no savvy. These past couple of years has taught me to grow up real fast," Amara said bitterly.  
"The Hellions?" Dani asked of her teammate's past villainous association.  
"I wanted to belong somewhere and you know as well as I do that when the New Mutants dissolved into Cable's violent little pets of bombastic testosterone, it wasn't a welcoming fold for women like us. And Charles, piously pure in principle, wants us to put our heads on the chopping block for a pittance and a pat on the head. I had to make my way. In many ways I was an orphan as adult. I was angry. The Hellions were my lashing out. I did some therapy, took control of what little money I had and focused on being the only person I know how to honestly be: Amara Aquilla and Magma."  
Dani slipped on her garters and shoes. Silks and leathers so soft and delicate she was almost afraid she'd rip them to put them on. Once on though she felt like she was still nude. The dress slipped over her head, the billowing black and full bell sleeves creating a wonderful effect with her hair free flowing as she moved. "Charles can be a bit shortsighted and at the same time dangerously insightful."  
"What do you mean?" Amara asked.  
Dani opened her travel bag and took out a suede covered Bowie knife. "He recommended me for SHIELD training under one of his friends in the Mutant Underground. I spent a year after my time in Asgaard learning how to further my psi abilities and ultimately not rely on them."  
Amara giggled as Dani slipped the knife into her garter strap. "Surely, there will be metal detectors, Dani? You can't hope to get that inside."  
"Plastic as sharp as titanium and a ceramic handle. The kind of weapon made to take out Magneto at close range with not a trace of metal in it. I've got a few other surprises up my sleeves too. The Hellfire Club has a reputation for psionic bafflers at all of their parties and club houses. I'll be next to powerless in there," Dani winked as she slipped on several tribal bracelets and earrings. "I'm always prepared. But back to Selene. Unofficially, I'm Warren's deputy leader. I can't allow you to go in with anything but the mission in mind, Amara."  
"No worries, Dani, my grudge with Selene won't be played out tonight, she's immortal and I'm patient."  
"Amara, let's get this clear up front. No confusion. You stay on the side of the Archangels or I'll help you join them. Clear?" Dani said darkly, allowing a bit of her Valkyrie death mask to seep from the shadows of her face.  
Amara hesitated, unsure if she could challenge this Danielle Moonstar with all of her SHIELD and Asgaardian training. This was either a stunt to keep her in line or the truth. And the one thing Amara knew of Dani was that she was proud of the fact that she didn't come from people who bluffed.  
"Crystal," Amara whispered and added Dani to her mental list of obstacles to be dealt with.  
  
Sanctuary Township, Great Sandy Desert, Australia:  
  
The Blackbird came to a rest on the hard earthen ground in the center of the deserted town between several buildings.  
"You certainly know how to make an entrance," Chamber chuckled.  
"Why be discreet?" Nightcrawler shrugged as he, Cecelia, Karma, Chamber and Talisman disembarked. "With the exception of Frenzy there's no one for miles and miles, we have the whole town to ourselves."  
"Ignore him, Kurt. Jonoo is still on a celebrity kick. This is the man who didn't even show up to any of our training sessions," Shan laughed. "Holed up in your room still mourning losing Sugar Kane!"  
Chamber shook his head. "Nope. Away on a secret mission for the Professor, luv. That Kane business is behind me. I'm ready to start a whole new chapter."  
"Well, hello there!" Johanna Cargill waved as she came out of the building across the street. "I thought you would land on the outskirts."  
"My God, how hot is it?" Cecelia groaned and took off her long sleeved shirt so that she was down to a t-shirt and shorts. She pinned up her braids and went onto a front porch to get out of the fiery sun. Going from the cool interior of the Blackbird to Hell wasn't what she had exactly expected.  
"Our uniforms will afford us some protection but we will all get serious tans from this sun!" Shan laughed, slipping on a pair of RayBans. She was glad that her hair was shorter, it would be murder to have it sopping with sweat in this climate. She glanced at Talisman who stood quietly to herself. In fact she'd been quiet the whole flight down from New York. Shan knew that Liz Twoyoungmen's powers were suppose to be mystical in nature but that she was genetically destined to possess them. Somehow in the Professor's brain that made her a mutant, a pseudo mutant, new kind of mutant. Whatever. What he hadn't prepared them for was how remote the young woman was. Not directly anti-social just lost in her own thoughts or a book. She was pretty though, Shan had to give her that. Now Johanna all ripped muscles standing so confidently looked like an Amazon. Shan shyly couldn't decide which extreme she thought was more attractive.  
"That's one of the drawbacks of this place. Average temperature is one twenty on really hot days. My invulnerability gives me some protection from it so I don't even notice it too much anymore," Johanna explained. She was a head taller than most of them except for Jonoo who was wrapped in bandages up to his nose to keep his psionic field in check. Other than that most of them were decked out in shorts and khakis they looked like casual vacationers, not world savers. Well, with the exception of the blue skinned Nightcrawler. She had expected Archangel and Iceman to be with them, the only ones she'd met with serious violent history back when she was working for Apocalypse and they in X-Factor. But no such luck. She'd have to wait for the inevitable bad feelings and mistrust a few more days while the other half of the team made their way down. In some ways the waiting was worse than the bad feelings they might hold.  
"Certainly hotter than Canada but I've been on some hot digs in New Mexico," Liz said and introduced herself to Johanna. :Liz Twoyoungmen aka Talisman. I've traveled a bit. Been here once myself. This is a great place, full of history. Well, not here but the continent. Aboriginal history," she held up a book she'd been reading. "I was doing research."  
"Ah. Yeah, lots of caves and stuff to explore. Ayers Rock is over that way. Beautiful. But quite a trek. There are two SUVs over there for such trips. Smaller towns around here, maybe a hundred miles out. Once that Gateway guy shows up we'll be able to travel instantaneously to Sydney where it's really hopping," Johanna smiled. She wasn't sure if she felt like the maid or a third wheel or a stepchild but Talisman had extended herself as if she was just a normal person, a member of the team. Kurt, Jonoo and Cecelia were still a bit stand offish and Shan seemed to coolly detached behind her shades. At least no blows had been exchanged. Part of Johanna had been tensed for that. Worried that they would kick her out. Sanctuary had become her home in the past few months, all alone. She wanted them to like her so that they wouldn't ask her to leave.  
"It will be easier to transfer the supplies and everyone's stuff from the Blackbird from here rather than the landing area. We understand from the schematics that there's plenty of living space to choose from?" Cecelia asked.  
"Yes, there are half a dozen small frame houses and almost twelve intact buildings. I've wired them all with comm systems but they're still a little messy and bare. The warehouse building for basics has kind of been the two storefronts over there. Furniture, sundries. Food and such is kept underground and then I was going to convert the large building over there to a cafeteria so the huge fridges are there. All the power is up and running so you can just wander around or tap into the comm system for any questions. Basically walk around, see what you like and it's yours," Johanna smiled good-naturedly.  
"Danke, Johanna, you've done a wonderful job," Kurt grinned then vanished in a burst of brimstone and reappeared inside of the Blackbird. While he knew that Johanna was to be their ally and had worked hard to get the town ready for conversion into a full time base, Kurt had read the files on her. Her association with Apocalypse and Magneto and then her betrayal of the Genoshans had left him with mixed feelings about her. Being well over six and a half feet tall with corded muscles that reminded him of the She Hulk didn't help to allay his fears. However he had prayed on it and found that forgiveness should be his goal with her, that at best she was neutral now, a clean slate t be painted upon as she wished. After all, hadn't his foster sister Rogue started out in much the same fashion? Kurt pushed down several anti-grav platforms, close to six feet wide that contained each present X-Man's personal belongings in luggage and boxes. "Well, personally I want to be closest to the labs and the medical buildings, I'm not exactly a desert girl like Liz here," Cecelia leaned on the bar of her grav lifter and headed into the building right cross from the Blackbird muttering that she wasn't going far in this heat.  
Something is wrong here, sister, Tran whispered within his sister's mind.  
Go away, Tran, there is nothing wrong here!  
Sister, there are many things I know and one of them is the stench of evil, he insisted.  
Frenzy is setting us up for an ambush? Shan asked in alarm knowing that for all his dark ways, Tran still needed her body to survive, to cling to a semblance of life.  
No. The Black woman knows nothing of this but she has been touched by it.  
"I can definitely feel the improvement but the Reavers must've done a lot of shit here, the place will need a good cleansing spell," Liz said, her fingertips touching the air and light sparkles appearing. "Once we get settled I'll get on it. Some wards around here couldn't hurt either. "I'll take an apartment in one of the buildings to the East over there and then set up some power points."  
"You think it's necessary?" Kurt asked skeptically.  
"Kurt, my brother senses residual darkness here as well. He insists that something passed through here recently," Shan added and received a feeling of chiding from her brother. She had waited until a stranger had verified his claim, he was stewing that she obviously didn't trust him. She let him feel the resentment at sharing a body with him and he backed down. Left to his own thoughts and she hoped for the millionth time, not some diabolical plan. Their awareness of the others thoughts was spotty at best and while emotions were easy to separate and recognize, specific plans weren't. Shan promised herself that her association with the X-Men would end this dual imprisonment she had with her non-corporeal twin brother.  
"Johanna? Anything unusual out here?" Kurt asked the nearly seven foot tall womanhe wasn't used to craning his neck up to talk to someone that he was suppose to be leading. She had such a determined look on her face, even when she smiled that he couldn't help but give her a wide berth of arm reach space. She looked like she wasn't constantly angry or ready to snap. Everyone went silent as they watched her answer.  
"No, nothing out of the ordinary. I've been laid up with a sprained back I got excavating the area up the block that's to be a swimming pool. I took some meds and slept through the last day like a baby," Johanna shrugged then when she saw the naked suspicion in Kurt's eyes, snapped. "Oh, yeah me, Dr. Doom, Galactus and Apocalypse set up a trap for all of you here so that we could rule the world."  
Jono was the first to start laughing and they all shared a relieving chuckle.  
"I'm sorry, Johanna, I didn't mean to sound like I was accusing you of anything, my apologies," Kurt smiled and shook her hand.  
"Hey, even I was a super villain once. Shadow King? More men have been in this body than....well than I would prefer," Shan said wryly and everyone laughed again.  
"Back in my Gen X days I was in a tangle with Dracula, Lord of the Vampires," Jono threw in and the hilarity ensued.  
Kurt added. "We fought him once, Storm was possessed. Well we've all been possessed at some point, right?"  
"Possession? Who hasn't been?"  
"Happens all the time."  
"Annoying."  
"I have it as a super power."  
"For a time I even blamed my father for my mother's death and abandoning me as a child and tried to destroy him and Alpha Flight," Liz chuckled and everyone went silent. "Well there's a Jerry Springer show for you," Jono guffawed and they all started laughing again. "Johanna, you mentioned a pool?" Liz smiled.  
"Yeah, it's almost done, it just needs water added from one of the underground natural streams. After the muscle pull I figured I'd lay off such heavy work until there was some back-up here," Johanna said.  
"Well then let's get settled and then reconvene in the main building for a meal and then a plan of the week's work, ok?" Kurt suggested.  
They all agreed and Shan pushed her belonging on the anti-grave sled towards building Cecelia had gone into knowing that it held one of the three elevators to the subterranean levels of the advance technology base below. She'd been studying the specs and schematics for months now. The sooner the base was up and running, the sooner more mutants in training and children from the Institute could come here, including her brother and sister.  
The Black woman was not telling the truth.  
Tran! Be still! I sensed no duplicity in her. You see darkness in everything and one.  
And you, sister, do not possess the clarity I do with our gifts. If we are to work as a team within a team you must take my opinion and warnings as truth and not as sibling bickering!  
Shan hesitated. He was right. What use would she be to the X-Men if she was constantly doubting what amounted to another member of the team? Fine then, Tran, we will wait until dark and I will let you fly to discover the source of the darkness you sense.  
Good, sister. At last you are learning that we may be yin and yang but must always work in harmony.  
  
Tokyo, Japan, Yashida Towers:  
  
"This is such bullshit!" Bobby Drake grunted yanking at his cumber bund and Jean-Paul hit his hand away at super speed.  
"Drake, do not embarrass me!" Jean-Paul hissed as they stepped off of the elevator onto the roof garden where the Hellfire Club party was in full swing.  
"Embarrass you? Everyone thinks I'm your date!" Bobby said through gritted teeth. "No offense, Jean-Paul but isn't Paulie more your type?"  
"Relax, Drake, I am a public mutant and the Hellfire Club knows your face. Paulie is adequately blending into the background without compromising that we've infiltrated their party on several levels. Besides you don't have the musculature development that interests me," Jean-Paul said tiredly. Was it such a leap for Xavier to have taught his precious mutant puppies tolerance of not only genetic but sexual orientations?  
"What the hell does that mean?" Bobby said offended through gritted teeth.  
"Silence or I will create a spectacle with you that will mean nothing to me, having done it before but will change your entire existence," Jean- Paul threatened and Bobby opened his mouth then closed it.  
  
"Well, well, Warren, Danielle, Amara, what a pleasure!" Sebastian Shaw boomed as the three approached the kimono attired Black King of the Hellfire Club. The glint of pure animosity in his eyes rivaled only by their own but he was also clearly amused at their presence. "And my, Danielle, you have filled out deliciously," he looked her up and down lasciviously, leaving no doubt as to his thoughts. "Amara, as always, the princess in need of thawing."  
"Mr. Shaw, heard Ororo's friends kicked your ass royally a while back," Dani smiled from Warren's right arm.  
"You can give a common man riches but he will still act like a stable boy," Amara said between gritted teeth.  
"Sebastian, we've kept our part of the deal. We're here to help you stop this killer," Warren said tightly. "Let's not complicate this with false sentimentality, eh?"  
"As always Warren your succinctness belies the intelligence none of us credit you with. I wasn't sure you'd make it. Glad to see that Charles kept his word," Shaw chuckled.  
"Charles is a man of his word," Amara said from Warren's left.  
"How is Nova Roma these days?" Shaw asked then corrected himself. "Oh, that's right it was just a stage for puppets. Much like your current position, I expect, Amara. Now you need the crumbs that fall off of anyone's dish, yes, pet?"  
Dani felt Warren tense as she had, Shaw had struck directly at Amara's sorest point, her lost past. Neither was sure how she would react.  
  
Amara smiled and slipped from Warren's arm to Shaw's in one fluid motion. They all wondered if she was going to burn him, literally. "Be a man and not a boy, Sebastian, I appreciate your wit not baiting."  
Sebastian laughed heartily. "Whatever happened to that fiery temper we all knew and found so incorrigible?"  
"Perhaps she had it sucked out of her," Selene purred, appearing next to them in the blink of an eye. Dani almost went for her knife, the images of Death swirling around the woman were overpowering. Dani noticed that simply standing near Selene brought Death images from the heads of others. The woman was a walking possibility of massacre.  
"Ah, Sebastian's slag shows herself," Amara grinned.  
"Yes, I feared was going to miss you, my dear. Like having the life sucked out one's self or someone close, yes?" Selene whispered, smiling, white teeth gleaming within a long tangle of ebony hair and a dress that revealed more leg and cleavage than anyone else at the party. But Selene's bearing, the dark, hungry look in her eye dared anyone to step out of line and make a crass remark. Her response guaranteed to be lethal.  
Warren tensed and saw Jean-Paul and Bobby drawing closer out of the corner of his eye. The history between Selene and Amara, the latter's mother supposedly killed by her was well known throughout the team. He spoke up first, not knowing how much longer the verbal barbs could continue before someone lost control. "Shaw, we're here about the serial killer. You've staged this party to bring him out and we're here to capture him. Old scores can be settled later."  
"True, Warren. Channel, as the killer calls himself, has made several attempts on my life. I suppose I am considered the high end of the kill ladder."  
"If not the food chain," Dani muttered and Warren mentally chided her.  
"As you know from the briefing the police sent Charles, seven mutants have been confirmed killed here in Japan alone in the past two weeks. All with the mark of this Channel chap. Because of my recent troubles with your...other friends lead by Ororo, I cannot use my own considerable resources to find and destroy him. So I called in hired help, much as I do for other menial tasks."  
"Translation: my ass has been whipped so many times I'm not sure I can take Channel down," Dani snickered.  
"Calm your squaw, Warren lest I do it for you," Shaw said coldly.  
Dani was about to deck the sanctimonious ass for the slur when Warren stepped so close to Shaw's face that she had to strain to hear his threat. "One push, Shaw. Right off the roof. I may not be blue anymore but I still know how to kill without remorse."  
Warren stepped back to hold her arm and the darkness receded in him so quickly that Dani was shocked. Perhaps there was more to the man than gloss and money suggested?  
Shaw seemed chastised and nodded. "Point made and taken." "Worthington, good to see you've still got it in you. We wouldn't want our members to be lacking in temerity," Selene chuckled. "Never know when a position may open." She wrapped her arms around Shaw's waist and free arm and they all understood that she was threatening her King surreptitiously.  
"Hard to believe we're all on the same side tonight, isn't it?" Amara chuckled as she, Shaw and Selene made their way across the room. It didn't escape Dani's notice how comfortable Amara seemed on his arm. Was she doing it to protect the man or to irk Selene? Too many cross hostilities going on to be sure.  
I should've pushed him and been done with it! Warren thought angrily.  
  
It wouldn't have made your defending of my honor any less gallant. Thanks, Dani psi replied.  
Warren looked at her and for a moment she was lost in his beautiful blue eyes and he smiled that resplendent smile that she pretended didn't make her feel like a schoolgirl. Can't let anyone insult my War Chief, now can I?  
No, we can't have that now.  
When this is over----?  
Yes, definitely---.  
---we--  
---have to---  
---talk.  
  
Paulie felt like a schmuck.  
He hadn't even noticed that his tuxedo had been different from the others until it was too late.  
"Hey, Paulie, you wanna get that shrimp platter out there?!" his boss yelled at him and Paulie snatched up the platter and stalked onto the roof garden as a waiter.  
Ace in the hole, my ass! He thought angrily on the plan Warren had outlined to him. Seems like no one knew who he was in this bullshit celebrity party gone mutant Hellfire Club so he was to blend in and stay close to Shaw if possible. If he wasn't wanted halfway around the world, Paulie would've skipped out by now or better yet went up and asked Shaw for a job. He knew that Sebastian Shaw routinely made the Forbes 400 and if he could have the "I'm So Hot, I'm Cold" Princess Magma on his arm then he had the moves Paulie wanted.  
Look at all the pretty ladies who were looking right through him like he was a plant because of the dumb towel and food tray he was carrying. The only positive point to this whole shit was that Drake had gotten fixed with being Jean-Paul's date. That was a hoot and a holler. Drake tried to act all cool but he didn't have the same City skills, Paulie did and the flair for not being offended by "alternative lifestyles". Word was Karma was a dyke too. But that was ok, she was as flat as the tray he was carrying. He'd bide his time and wait out Magma or maybe even Ms. Death, Psyche herself. Both looked fucking amazing coming out of the state room on board the plane earlier this evening.  
Paulie smiled at someone he was positive he'd seen in a movie a few months ago as he glanced around the rich and famous, nary a serial killer in site.  
  
"You were correct, sir. Several of the guests have been identified as X-Men."  
"Yes, I see them. I see mutants most clearly."  
"How do you want us to proceed, sir?"  
"Shaw is our primary target but an X-Man or two's heads in a box might make an interesting proclamation to Xavier. Zero in the scope rifles and target six of the Hellfire royal guard for me, please, Camus."  
"Yes, sir."  
"Let us show them our capabilities."  
  
"Did you see that?" Jean-Paul asked Bobby.  
"See what?' Bobby said stuffing a spinach puff in his mouth then following it with a glass of champagne.  
"Stop feeding your face and pay attention. I saw something strike someone in the crowd!" Jean-Paul hissed and focused his line of sight on the party goers and the night skyline, looking for the subtle disturbance he'd seen before. Could it have been merely a trick of light?  
Bobby looked over the gala gathering, he and Jean-Paul were on the balcony of the garden, a level above the main floor to give them a full field of vision. "I don't see anything. Are you sure?"  
"Of course I am, you moron! It must've been very fast. It must've been-----there several more!" Jean-Paul said then opened his comm link. "Warren, I'm seeing some sort of transparent projectiles heading at high speed into the crowd. I think because I'm used to looking at things so fast I can see them. Do you copy?"  
"Can you confirm a target for me?" Warren replied. "Is it Shaw?"  
"No, but I can find the shooter," Jean-Paul said and an instant later speed off of the side of the building.  
"Everyone, form tight on Shaw, our killer may've just made his move," Dani said over the comm link and several of the bionic Hellfire Club guards dressed as dark shaded security moved in to surround Shaw. Without warning six of them turned and pulled out their automatic weapons and opened fire at their employer.  
Acting in concert, two X-Men used their bodies to shield Shaw from the onslaught. Magma superheated her body and the bullets harmlessly melted within inches of her as Paulie tackled Shaw, his invulnerable form deflecting the rest of the shells. Selene seeing both an opportunity and danger had vanished in the wink of an eye, noticeably leaving Shaw to fend for himself.  
"Who the hell are you?" Shaw demanded of Paulie who was covering him with his body.  
"Uh--------an X-man?" Paulie gulped not even sure where the burst of speed and courage had come from to throw himself in the line of fire like that. His augmented strength and speed plus near invulnerability were constant surprises to him when he used them instinctively.  
"C-can't breathe----!" Shaw gasped and Paulie noticed the blood on Shaw's kimono. He'd been clipped one. "Those are my men firing on me. My men!"  
Warren didn't hesitate as he ripped his wings free of the silk straps that kept them tied down under his jacket and barreled into the tuxedo clad Hellfire guards that had fired on their boss.  
"Bobby, I'm going to need back up!" Warren shouted over his comm link to Iceman who was already sliding down a frozen ramp, ice blasts striking the guards.  
"Right with you, ArchArchangel!" Iceman said.  
Magma blasted two of the guards with lava bolts, reigning in the height of temperatures she could've produced because of the screaming, fleeing crowds all around them. And where was that cowardly whore Selene? Shouldn't she have used her considerable powers to defend Shaw?  
Warren used his wings to slam two of the bionic guards through the glass wall into the atrium below as Iceman froze another two in blocks of ice up to their necks.  
"Shaw's shot!" Paulie shouted to Warren.  
"Keep us covered, I'll check him out!" Dani shouted as she kneeled next to Shaw, he was barely conscious and rasping for air. She quickly examined the wound in his chest. Pierced lung. She debated letting him literally bleed into his lung and suffocate, an excellent way to kill a man who could absorb kinetic energy and turn it into strength but her word to Xavier won. As long as she fought alongside the X-Men she'd play by their rules. She ripped Shaw's kimono and shoved a swatch into the gaping wound then took out her Bowie knife and expertly cut a hole into his trachea.  
"Shit! You watch ER or something?" Paulie said in shock.  
"You learn a lot after years on an Asgaardian battlefield," Dani said then turned back to her other teammates. "Don't worry, we've got it here, Warren."  
"Good, I'll go back up Northstar," Warren said, his concern and plan shared with Dani instantly. He briefly wondered if this kind of psionic rapport is what made Cyclops and Phoenix such a formidable team. He took to the night air, his eagle like eyesight having locked on to the building half a mile away Northstar had flown to.  
"Years----?" Paulie questioned of Dani's comment but his words were lost to the flurry of action as ArchArchangel took off and an iced up Iceman coming over to put an ice cap on Dani's makeshift bandage. With a slight swivel of his hand, Iceman created an ice straw and Dani calmly popped it into the hole she'd cut in Shaw's throat.  
"Nice work, chief," Iceman said then looked around for more hostiles. Most of the guests had run inside off of the roof and were hurrying down stairs and elevators. In the space of few minutes they were practically alone on the deck.  
"Not too shabby yourself, popsicle," Dani nodded back then went over to one of the downed guards he had frozen in place. "There's some kind of control dart in his neck."  
"T-to supercede their motor control and adaptive programming?" Shaw gasped, trying desperately to sit up.  
"Is that possible?" Iceman asked him.  
"It seems to be," Paulie snapped.  
Dani pointed to the last of the guests who were rushing to the elevators inside to escape, "Iceman, Magma, make sure they get out of here safely, we'll protect Shaw."  
"What about her?" Magma said, having reverted to her fiery form, pointing to an unconscious Selene on the floor. "She must've been trampled by the crowd or shot by one of the guards."  
Dani knew where this was going with Magma, the lack of caring in what happened to Selene and at the same time. "I'll get her out of here, we've got to get to cover. We've got a sniper situation here."  
"Leave the witch, Psyche, she would do the same to us!" Magma said indignantly.  
"Magma, work out your drama on your own time. Right now, get those people loaded onto the elevators!"  
Magma's body swirled with energy but she turned and followed Iceman inside hurrying guests through the large doors towards the elevator banks. Her parting glare at Dani had let her know that the argument was far from over.  
Paulie picked up Shaw. "I've got him. You get her, we've got to get to cover if there's a sniper out there."  
Dani kicked off the uncomfortable heels and grabbed up Selene who suddenly lashed out at her, the blow striking her in the head. Dani rolled to her feet as Selene unsteadily stood up. "Get out of me!!"  
"Don't you mean off?" Dani said and her psi bow and arrow appeared, a shaft flying at the Black Queen.  
"No, you fool, that's what he needs!' Selene screamed as the psi arrow struck her in the stomach and she caved over, her mind weakened by the attack.  
"What the hell is going on here?" Paulie said as Dani cautiously formed another arrow to fire at the crouching woman.  
Dani gritted her teeth, she was seeing multiple images floating above Selene. Death. An astral figure of a man. Even a figure of Selene. All of them seeming to be in a struggle. But for what? She glanced at the unconscious Hellfire Guards and understood. "Paulie, it's possible I just helped Channel take over Selene's body."  
"More than possible!" Selene screamed as she suddenly stood up, hands crackling with eldritch energy in front of the X-Men. "Give Xavier my regards, tell him Channel said hi!" she shrieked maniacally and then the roof seemed to melt, concrete and steel, bending to her mutant powers, sending the X-Men and Shaw sliding over the edge seventy hundred stories above the Tokyo streets.  
  
Archangel had the advantage of tracing Northstar with his eagle like eyes and the fact that Northstar's comm link was transmitting his location as half a mile way inside of a half constructed skyscraper. When he got there he wasn't surprised to see an unconscious man on a terrace, a high powered rifle neck to him. Northstar stood over the man who was clothed in a maintenance uniform holding a jar with thin nearly transparent needles inside.  
"Is that the killer? Channel?" Archangel asked as he landed next to him teammate.  
"Now that's a difficult question to answer. This man is named Camus a loyal associate of Channel. It seems that he spotted this body coming towards him and had the foresight to randomly open fire," Northstar said calmly, having switched from his tuxedo to X uniform somewhere along the way.  
"Somehow Channel got six of Shaw's guards to open fire on him. He's wounded but not dead." Archangel leaned down to look at Camus then glanced up at Northstar. "Did you just say.'this body'?"  
"Very astute," Northstar said and kicked Archangel not once but half a dozen times in the chest in the time it took him to speak. "You see, Archangel. This is me, after a form." Northstar grinned, holding the canister. "I am a unique mutant who possesses others through these projectiles. Amazing, no?"  
Archangel was sure he'd be badly bruised in the morning as he back pedaled into the office behind him to get some space from the co-opted Northstar. "So I'm talking to Channel now?"  
"Yes," Northstar said then slammed both of his fists into Archangel dozens of times in less than a second. "My, my, this speed thing is wonderful, isn't it?"  
Archangel staggered against a wall, he was no match for Northstar in speed or close quarters but he had to suspect that Channel needed time to adjust to his new form. He dropped to one knee, waited until he saw the first hint of Northstar moving then lashed out with his wings at the furniture in the room. Desks and chairs created obstacles for Northstar and Channel not proficient in the use of his powers had to slow down to dodge each object. It was a blunt tactic but the distraction allowed him to go crashing through the closed windows and back into his element.  
"Oh, this will be fun!" Northstar said and flew out of the window after Archangel.  
  
Sanctuary, Great Sandy Desert, Australia:  
  
Kurt couldn't help but be impressed by the Situations room of the Sanctuary base. Computer screens covered cavern walls almost 40 feet high, with the latest technology and Shi'ar integrations built in, he was sure it matched the Institute in America. He sat at the one control board casually flipping through the security systems, looking at the 3 square miles that officially and legally were Sanctuary the township and he was pleased to have been given the opportunity to help manage this next important step in Prof. Xavier's goals. His initial tenure as an X-Man and then leader of Excalibur and then back to the X-men had kept him focused on the importance of mutants and humans having a co-existence dialogue and also areas where mutants could feel safe. The Genoshan tragedy, another of God's mysterious ways had torn Kurt into a tailspin. His heart cried out for vengeance not only against Cassandra Nova but also the humans who afterward had celebrated the island nation's destruction.  
For now Sanctuary was a closely guarded secret but once complete construction was finished, Kurt envisioned a small city where mutants didn't have to fear annihilation.  
"How goes our eyes in the sky?" Liz asked as she stepped off of the elevator and into the vast room.  
"The town is fully functional and every square inch accounted for. The only areas where there is no video surveillance are our personal quarters. Johanna is busy on the other side of town doing the first excavations for the underground hangar. When Magma arrives she'll have her work cut out for her in tunneling to connect all of the buildings and hangar to this main base," Kurt smiled as she sat next to him, her arms full of blue prints and data pads for each of the buildings.  
"I know everyone had some reservations about Johanna but I've triple checked all of her mapping and construction work, everything is above board."  
"Yes, she may've been confused about her allegiances at one point in her life but she does seem comfortable working with the X-Men now."  
"Yes, that concerns me," Liz said cautiously.  
"I'm sorry?"  
"My coronet of power," she said with an exaggerated raising of her eyebrows up at the bandanna she wore to cover it, it's invisibility spell, taxing when not absolutely necessary to maintain, "gives me full protection from psi interference. Are you all aware of the low level confidence wave Xavier broadcasts?"  
"Excuse me!?" Kurt was baffled, the implications of what she was suggesting of his mentor for years was something akin to blasphemy.  
"Don't get me wrong, Kurt, it's only natural. But the professor------ how should I say?----bolsters everyone around him. Those of you that have worked in-depth with him on psi shields and such are the most affected."  
"Liz, you are new to your gifts. Their origin in your being a technical mutant but their mystical affects making you one of the most unique students since Illyana Rasputin, perhaps you've misunderstood what you sense?" Kurt said gently, trying to polite remind her that though they all knew her power was supposedly generations old and prophesied she was still a women in her early twenties and her experience in Alpha Flight not enough to question Charles Xavier's intents.  
Liz had known this would be a sensitive subject to broach. While Xavier's goal was noble, his methods of gathering so many to follow him, giving up any chance of normal lives for the exact edict of his dream would look to any sorcerer like mystical coercion. Xavier's immense mental powers were the perfect equator to him being able to cast "spells" over people, perhaps even unbeknownst to him.  
"You're studying to be a priest, correct, Kurt?" Liz said, trying to take a different route.  
"Yes, yes I am," he answered warily.  
"Do you know of the Chakran of Glory that emanates from certain beings?" "Yes, like the Pope supposedly possesses?" "And within the Sacree Nation, me? Dr. Stephen Strange? Those who are of a high order on the mystical plane?"  
"Yes, I know of it. Divinity touched beings. I will admit that I feel like you're similar to Phoenix and the Professor, as if you look through me rather than just at me, like a telepath."  
"Well, yes, that's when I haven't reigned in my mystical "self" for lack of a better term. I would appear like a high order telepath to you. That's what I'm implying about Charles. He has a psionic "glory" about him."  
"And you're suggesting, this is why we follow him? That he's somehow gently influencing us? Reinforcing his goals within us?"  
"Yes. I don't want to offend you and I can only soften the blow by suggesting that none of you ever had a chance against someone as powerful as him. But he's the most powerful telepath on Earth, Kurt. Don't you believe somewhere in there he would have an extra charismatic aura to him?"  
Kurt shook his head. It made sense but he needed to think on it more, to think past his loyalty to a man who had been like a father to him. "I must think on this. Have you mentioned it to the others?"  
"No."  
"Please don't. I've been on many teams. We're at a most fragile stage where we're here by choice in the middle of no where, the suggestion that it's mentally influenced might not sit well with anyone here or on Warren's team."  
"Ok, but do know that the mystical wards I've placed around this town will dampen Xavier's effect on everyone over time. You'll see what is influence and choice within yourself, as will the others the longer we spend time here."  
Kurt looked at her suspiciously. "Was that always part of your warding spells? I was raised by a high order sorceress and knew her daughter as well, it's not a normal warding addition."  
"I'm new to this, Kurt. Fumbling through how to do this. It was never my specific intent, no," Liz lied so smoothly that for a moment she was worried that her answer sounded too practiced. Xavier may've suggested that the X-Men would help her when the Reckoning came but even the old man didn't know that she needed his influence cut form them for them to side with her. No one could serve two masters. And with the power assembled in these mutants, she wasn't going to let this gathering slip out of her hands for its uses.  
  
Cecelia had commandeered the building behind the one where she and Shan had taken apartments as a medical facility. It was one of the few buildings equipped with an elevator and integrated electrical and solar power generators. While she hoped there would never be a need like the Morlock Massacre she had read about in the files for massive triage units, she could see it comfortably handing a hundred patients. It would've been an honor to be in charge of such a large facility, if there had been more than 4 others and the disembodied spirit of Tran floating around but in time there would be plenty of students here. The Institute had several hundred new students on its roll already with the numbers increasing every week. The point of Sanctuary would be to alleviate that burden within a year and Cecelia could see herself teaching a host of biology and medical courses as well as treating injuries.  
While it wasn't the life she had planned for herself and last night looking out at stars that were a world away from the one's she knew in New York, she'd felt like an exile, Cecelia had finally accepted that also being the X-Man in training Spike meant that her life had to change. She would find a way to embrace that change and not run from it because after her experiences with the Neo and Kick addiction she knew that she needed to be someplace where she was safe and the world was safe from her.  
Sitting at her small office desk and looking on the data pad she saw that the A/C was up and running, which was a huge relief. In less than an hour the entire complex would be cooled form the constant infernal heat that was outside. She walked to her window and saw Shan in a sports bra and shorts going for a bra and realized that soon this town would be a flesh palace. It simply wasn't an environment conducive to wearing a lot. Cecelia wasn't ashamed of her figure, maybe fifteen pounds heavier than Shan and Liz but she sure did feel self conscious in her uniform. Only the long trench coat she'd added to it, ostensibly for the medical supplies and biological analysis data pad she carried, made her feel more comfortable. It often seemed like all of these X-Men loved looking like professional athletes.  
A crash of glass from the other room caused her to jump and turn.  
"Ok, who did that?" Cecelia barked, storming into the hallway. No one was there but there was a tray of glasses smashed on the floor by one of the laboratories, as if someone had run out quickly and knocked it over by accident.  
Cecelia hesitated for a second. Could they have an intruder? Wasn't the security system around the town state of the art, not to mention Liz's mystical hoodoo on the place? Could someone have breeched it already? And to what purpose? Cecelia reached for one of the wall comms to call Kurt when she felt the air flutter behind her and then a hand clamped down on her mouth.  
  
Shan focused on the acid jazz beat booming in her ears from her walkman as she saw by her eye marker that she was about a mile from the town outskirts. Two more miles out and then back in would be a good run for the day. It felt good to use her muscles, to feel the harmony of Tran meditating on their form while moving. She knew that he received impressions and stimulation from her movement so they'd become exercise freaks. While her thoughts were segmented from his unless she chose otherwise, his were completely open to her. And he was miserable, his existence never physical even when she allowed him to usurp control and materialize in the physical world. For many months his thoughts had been obsessively about finding himself a new body and she'd pushed him a far corner of her mind, like a constant migraine.  
But time had soothed him. Balanced him in ways that he wasn't in the physical world. While she still knew that he had a far greater capacity for darkness than she ever would, she also knew that his commitment to their being X-Men was true. Perhaps even truer than hers, his hope was that one day they would come across or Xavier would discover a cure for his condition. A mindless body that a telepath could transfer his essence into. He would need a high order telepath such as Xavier to do that and more important Shan's cooperation to release him.  
Sister, what is that? He asked suddenly.  
What is what?  
To your right. Pay attention, he admonished.  
Shan wasn't entirely pleased with the fact that he seemed to utilize her senses so much better than she did. It was a condescending annoyance to know that he saw everything she did, even when she wasn't actively paying attention to the thing he was. Like someone using her body in an enhanced way, she often wondered if there was ever an "off switch" with them. He didn't require sleep so he was aware while she slept of their surroundings and delighted in telling her of them or of begging her to leave on the television for his amusement while she slept.  
Shan spotted the distortion he was talking about, sun light refracting off of something behind an outcropping of rocks.  
Probably scarp metal.  
Too large. Investigate.  
Tran! Come on, I doubt it's anything.  
Shan, please, I have a feeling about this. I think it may be linked to that odd sense of darkness I felt earlier. While our abilities on the physical plane may be merely possession of others, within this mental limbo I have a degree of attunement to your instincts. Things you wouldn't notice or automatically dismiss, I have more of a conscious time to process.  
"Terrific," she muttered out loud and ran towards the outcropping. When she got closer she could see it as if sunlight was shining down on and then reflecting off of something a few feet above the crowd outside of a cave.  
Any ideas?  
Non.  
Switch, he suggested. If it's some sort of cloaked area there may be people there. We're less vulnerable in my state.  
Agreed, Shan thought and with a mental click melt her body suddenly become insubstantial and transparent and then masculine. Mentally she felt as if she were switching places with Tran, taking a backseat in his head.  
Thank you for this modicum of decency, Tran smirked at the shorts and tank that appeared on him, as she had worn in reality.  
You are going to explain one day how you can masculinize anything I'm wearing when we switch, right?  
When I understand it myself, I will.  
Tran moving like an astral form flew across the expanse at the speed of thought and into the cave mouth expecting more cave only to find himself inside of space suit.  
Uh oh, Shan thought looking at the ship's interior.  
What? I can't access your memories and thoughts! You have to tell me! Tran thought angrily.  
Tran, this is a Shi'ar ship. The Shi'ar have officially cut off all contact with Earth and any of its citizens because of Cassandra Nova's actions. This must be a spy ship of some kind. We have to warn the others.  
Look at the seating. Only two seats, one or two people. And from the back area here I'm getting the same emanations of evil. Tran moved closer then phased through the back door and Shan screamed within his head. 


	3. Allegiances, Part 1

**X-Men: Sanctuary**

**Issue # 3**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

**Tokyo****, **Japan******:**

**            Dani didn't like pain.  But then honestly who did?  Well, extreme pain.  But she'd grown up dealing with pain, mental and physical.  Her parents supposedly dying, then her grandfather, the turmoil of the New Mutants, becoming a Valkyrie, living in Asgaard for many years longer than it appeared she'd been gone on Earth, Xavier volunteering her for SHIELD training and the conflicts that brought.  But here she was back with the X-Men, a place, a team, she hadn't wanted to return to but always knew her ancestors would bring her to.**

**            With her right hand she was clutching a steel girder extending from the ****Yashida**** **Towers****** that were now a warped physical version from only minutes ago.  From her left hand, she clutched teammate Paulie who in turn was clutching Sebastian Shaw, the man the X-Men had come to ****Japan**** to protect.  Above Dani by only a few meters was a cackling Selene, Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, supposed ally to Shaw who had suddenly used her matter altering powers to tip the roof of the building downwards like pouring water.**

**            Forty stories below lay a busy Japanese street and Archangel and Northstar the only flyers on the team were somewhere off dealing with snipers that were allied with Channel, the mutant serial killer who had targeted Shaw and was the X-Men's target.**

**            "Any last words, child?" Selene taunted Dani.**

**            Dani, her boy felling like it was slowly being torn in half, still felt like something was wrong.  Selene's face was twisted in dark pleasure but she was different.  Changed.  Almost as if she'd been co-opted by someone else.  And then the Hellfire Guards turning on Shaw made sense. **

**            "You're not Selene!" Dani spat at her.**

**            "Very good!  No, child I am Channel.  I channel through others for my own use.  Now I'm going to raise the girder up, it's Shaw I want to kill firsthand.  For that exchange, I'll allow you to live and only kill your friends."**

**            "Through the projectiles that people are shot with?  So you have an accomplice?" Dani said, working out a plan in head, hoping that Iceman and Magma were uninjured from the fall.  It would take all of them to overcome a possessed Selene.**

**            "Yes, we're engaging your flying friends across town as we speak!" Selene laughed.**

**            Dani nodded knowingly, that had been the answer she need.  Could Channel occupy more than one form at a time?  Obviously so.  "Paulie?"**

**            "I've got him!  I've got him!" Paulie babbled, still in shock over dangling so high up.**

**            "Shaw absorbs kinetic energy," Dani said a desperate plan forming in her head.**

**            "And you?" Paulie asked, calming slightly understanding what she meant for him to do.**

**            "I'm going to beat the shit or more like Channel out of Selene," Dani shouted up at her as Paulie let go of her hand and the two men plummeted.**

**            "For that you die!' Selene screamed and rode closer to Dani on the sliding metal she controlled.**

**            "Not today, not by you!" Dani smiled and let go, falling for only a minute until she felt a cold arm around her waist and wrapped her arms around Iceman's neck.  He was bringing them up on an ice ramp, a few feet away, Magma rising on an earthen one.**

**            "That was quite the risk, lady you've got some balls," Iceman laughed.**

**            "I was hoping you heard all over the comm link, We needed as much Intel possible on Channel before engaging.  Besides I knew that you and Magma would survive the roof being destroyed," Dani said as Selene screamed in rage then caused a pocket to open in the building itself and enveloped her.**

**            "Is she truly possessed by this Channel mutant?" Magma asked.  Does that mean we don't get to kill the bitch?"**

**            "Actually I think that may be the one loophole to killing Selene!" Dani said as Ice changed his stand into a ramp and they went sliding down.**

**            There was a thunderous crash below and a small crater exploded in the ground.**

**            "Guess Paulie and Shaw landed, eh?" Iceman said.  "Can Paulie take that kind of fall?"**

**            "His upper limit of invulnerability is a lot higher than this fall according to the professor's file on him.  Its Shaw I'm worried about, it's a calculated risk that his body will absorb the impact into strength and invulnerability injured as he was.  **

**            Sebastian Shaw, a billionaire several times over, a man who had crawled out of life's gutter to opulence beyond but a handful of men on the planet to comprehend, clawed his way out of the debris and sewer system crater he and Paulie had created upon their crash.  He wasn't a pleased man.  He'd been shot by his own bodyguards and owed his life to the emergency treatment of Psyche and Iceman.  And this was the second time Paulie, who was pulling himself out as well had saved his life.  He owed the X-Men his life three times over in the past few minutes and Shaw wasn't a man who liked debts.**

**            When it had come through his network of informants that a mutant serial killer had targeted him, the idea of asking Xavier to send some of his pups to "protect" had seemed like a delicious ironic idea.  His identity as a mutant was unknown and for his own purposes he preferred to keep it that way.  Perhaps, he had hoped, even a few X-men would be killed in the melee and he would get a chance to observe this killer in action.  Shaw was never to have been in danger.  But from what he had discerned in the past few minutes, Channel had the ability to control the minds and bodies of not only the Hellfire Guards but it's powerful Black Queen, Selene.  A woman who wanted to kill Shaw and take his place as head and had the power to do so.  Why she hadn't yet was merely a game of Shaw never being vulnerable enough for her to do it cleanly.  With a chest wound, healing from the massive influx of kinetic energy, but still bleeding, a possessed Selene controlled by a madman who wanted to kill Shaw seemed like manna to the true Selene's goals.  His only hope of survival would be himself, he didn't trust the X-Men, especially Magma to defend him against Selene gone rogue.**

**            "Just the man I was looking for," the possessed Selene said as she came out of the lobby of Yashida Towers and saw Shaw pulling himself to his feet. **

**            "Channel, I take it?  Selene lacks the temerity to create such massive destruction for simply my death.  It lacks style," Shaw grunted, his words still coming in gasping bursts as his body worked feverishly to knit up his wounds.**

**            "Yes, Shaw.  Know though that though Selene fights viciously inside of me, it's to regain control, not to prevent me from killing you."**

**            "I would expect no less," Shaw smirked then pressed on with the opportunity he had before him.   Though his mutant power had left him kinetically charged his wound was still bleeding, he needed a few moments for his healing to be augmented.  Selene was smart enough to have killed him outright had she been in control of her own body.  Shaw wasn't missing the irony of two beings in one body limited by their knowledge that the other had wanting to kill him.  When, not if, he survived this latest challenge, he would laugh about it.  The only question in his mind was whether or not that would include being with Selene or toasting her end as well.  "I take it you have a purpose for wanting to kill me?"**

**            "Of course I do Shaw and the fun part will be watching you agonize over what brought this on and realizing that it could've been prevented," Selene grinned.**

**            "How unoriginal.  Do you have any idea the number of enemies I have?  I take it as a compliment to both collect and dispose of them," Shaw said dryly, then slammed his fists onto the ground causing a shock wave that threw Selene to her knees.  He ran closer to her intended upon snapping a new and old enemy's neck in the same instant before Channel gained a mastery over her abilities when a blast of intense cold struck him from above.**

**            "Easy, Shaw, we're not thrilled with having to keep someone like Selene alive but she's still a pawn in this," Iceman called down from his ice sled, Psyche holding on to his waist.**

**            "Fool, it's best to press the attack before he understands both Selene's limits and potential!" Shaw raged, knowing that such a massive expenditure of power would necessitate Selene absorbing life forces of others to replenish herself.  Channel must not be aware of that need or Selene was hiding it from him, but once Channel understood how to recharge his weapon they wouldn't have a chance.**

**            "I have to agree with Shaw, Iceman, this is an excellent opportunity to deal with two threats!" Magma said as she hopped off on her earthen sled and helped a groggy Paulie to his feet.**

**            "Channel, we don't want to harm Selene but we will if that's what it takes," Psyche threatened.**

**            "S-simpering idiot children!" Shaw chattered as he stretched and shattered the icy layer on his body.  "Hesitate now and all is lost!"**

**            "Too late," Selene shouted and hundreds of cables ripped from the ground and grabbed Shaw and the X-Men, snatching them to the ground.  "Again, X-Men, join into this fray at your own peril!  You're not on my list at the moment but with so much power at my disposal that could change."**

**Channel occupying Selene knew that they were all gambling on him not being able to become accustomed to Selene's abilities in such a short period of time and to so degree they were right.  Subsuming a normal host body was easier than trying to remain dominant over this creature that had been alive for millennia but she subsided in her struggle when it became clear that he intended to torture Shaw before killing him.  Her animosity for the Black King greater than her desire to break free but she also was emanating a fear he would harm the fire wench.  Why, he couldn't understand but looking for a pawn, he had found an ally.**

**            "Finally a chance to fry you!" Magma said gleefully, easily melting the metal tentacles off of her super heated body and fired lava bolts at Selene.**

**            Selene vanished as the lava bolts seared the ground where she'd been an instant before and reappeared down the block near the crowds the police were trying to hold back.  **

**"Is this what you crave, my dear?  I didn't know that we also had a habit to feed, so many secrets I'll have to pry out of you!" Channel said out loud to  Selene within as he raised her cloak mesmerizing dozens of people and then reached into the crowd and began clutching a man and a woman, absorbing their life forces.  The use of this woman's abilities seemed to be in direct correlation her vampiric like feeding, the more power he expended the more he needed to feed.  The question was how long could he hold onto this precious new toy?  His parasitic possessions generally had no limit but his whim however her constant hammering away from inside the mental prison would soon force him to relinquish her.  He had many forms to control, therefore mental battlefronts to maintain while the true Selene had the privilege of only one enemy to focus on.**

**            Glancing back at the X-men who were freeing themselves, Channel knew that he didn't stand a chance against them as long as he was new to Selene's powers.  He would need time to cultivate stronger mental bonds around the woman's essence.  But that didn't mean all was lost.  With another burst of speed, Selene crossed back to the X-men and grabbed Shaw's throat.**

**            "Have a care, X-Men, I could kill him without hesitation," Selene grinned.**

**            Psyche, psi bow and arrow drawn, nodded with a grim smile.  "Channel, we can match this fight."**

**            "Yes, but I have much to do!  And not much time to do it in!" Selene laughed then waved her free hand at the sagging tower above, causing what looked like a wave stopped in mid arc to continue plummeting.**

**            "Holy shit!" Iceman said which expressed what they were all thinking.  He gave a silent prayer that he had what it would take to do this and thought of his body as more of a large form than a being.  Rocketing up his icy form began first expanding and then flattening until it became a buttress to catch the plunging tower.  Still mentally conscious within the ice barrier he focused on expanding even as columns for support to hold up the tons of metal shot down from the contrary ice structure.  Expanding further still until the ice shield encompassed the entire street.  Then pulling more and more moisture form the air, from the nearby ocean to curve the barrier, catch the debris.  He prayed that the building would hold as he forced his barrier to grow even higher to push back against the wave to steady as much of the building as possible.  Selene didn't have the power to topple a skyscraper so easily but causing it to pour had shifted the integrity of the structure, the weight distribution.  He couldn't put it back but he could make sure it was only the top ten or fifteen stories that actually collapsed and crumbled and not the entire building.**

**            Pulling upon more mental reserves then he would've ever expected himself to have, Iceman allowed his barrier to grow into an embrace and then a full cast around the entire building, all the while creating overpass barriers on the surrounding streets below.  He focused on not thinking of himself as a man but as the ice itself. Forming the ice as he would if it was in his hands and not thousands of feet, hundreds of tons.**

**            "Fuck me!" Paulie said as he grabbed Psyche, prepared to shield her with his own body but Iceman's feat no longer making it necessary.**

**            "Paulie, out of the way don't forget about Selene!" Psyche shouted but it was too late as a cascade of pavement slammed into both of them.**

**            Magma readying her powers to add support beams to Iceman's structure without shifting the fragile Japanese tectonic structure too could cause a huge seismic event turned her attention away from Selene only to be struck down by a mystic bolt from the sorceress.**

**            Draining away enough of his life force to keep him dazed but not kill him, Selene hissed into her captive Shaw's ear, "Don't struggle, Black King, you'll miss the best part!"**

**            With a burst of speed, Selene, still clutching Shaw, scooped up Magma, who stunned, reverted to her human form, and they both vanished.**

**Madripoor:**

**            Supplies were low even with the United Nations air lifting in supplies.  Khan's invasion attempt, repelled by a faction of teh X-Men lead by Storm had saved the island, saved the world, in fact but the small nation was severely hurt by it.  Low Town, reserved for pirates and ne'erdowells had been as phsyical devastated by the shock troopers as High Town where the affluent dwelled and had once played.  But Khan's shock troopers had been indiscriminate in their attacks, class boundaries meaningless to winning, to conquering and establishing a foothold.  Though they had loss the Earth, the repelled soldiers, their energy conduit space ladder to Earth never firmly established, could rest assured back in their home dimensions, that they had given Madripoor a sound beating.**

**            Under Prince(ss) Viper, formerly of Hydra, committed nihilist and terrorist, now reigning sovereign of the small nation, the Madripoorians had fought back valiently, viciously with guerilla tactics and self sacrifice that was legend amongst the conventional forces of the world that had been unable to hep them due to the force field that segmented the island off from the rest of the world.  When the X-Men had turned the tide and won the war, the island rejoiced and then focused on rebuilding, on recreating teh balance infrastructure it had maintained for so many years before.   The chief imports and exports, all manner of vice that the crowned prince(ss) of the island would allow.  And Viper, having lived a life that held precious few moments of grace had gone to work reestablishing Madripoor as a gambling capital of the Orient, willing to traffick any and everything that would save what was a hemorraging population.  She had turned a blind eye to anyone who's reasons for wanting to invest in the island, legitimate and not, would've normally been closely screened.  She would get the country back on it's feet from legal and illegal aide and then vicously cut a swath through anyone foolish enough to challenge her rulership.**

**            There were those who weren't interested in rulership though.  There were those who were interested in somewhere to hide or even more important, rest, plot and flourish.**

**            Meridian was just such an entrepreneur.**

**            Through lackeys she had legitimately purchased several estates that the owners had abandoned and converted them into a development compound.  She allowed the underbosses Viper had in charge of watching such new players believe she was an arms dealer.  Not big enough for them to worry abotu her staging a coup.  Just someone who had worn out her welcome in all of the normal terrorist rest places.  Bimini, Algiers, the Congo.  She paid the outrageous "protection fees" the underbosses demanded for themselves and the royal coffers with just enough reticience to look believable.  She knew she'd been checked out three ways from Sunday and back again.  But her resume as a dealer was impeccable, she should know, she had spent years cultivating it.  Her background was sullied enough and murky enough to be taken seriously and therefore overlooked by everyoen in the communities she enjoyed hiding in.  She had made it a art form to hide, to cultivate, to nurture.**

**            Wasn't that her greatest ability?**

**            Cultivating and nurturing mutants?**

**            No, perhaps her greatest ability had been keeping her truly greatest ability a secret.  With agents sprinkled throughout the world, a network that if ever exposed would be seen to rival a superpowers  intelligence organization, Meridian had been invisible on the mutant cultivation radar screen for nearly a decade.  Let the Xavier and Magneto's dual in the day with their pawns cast at each other.  Even let the Hellfire Club Lord Cardinals believe that their machinations were hidden in secrecy and darkness from all.**

**            Meridian _was_ the darkness.  She was the collector of knowledge and more importantly of the refuse of the madmen, all in her opinion, Apocalypse, Sinister, Xavier, Magneto who ran around creating wheels within wheels to try and oust the other from the premiere position of mutant leader.  She was smarter than them all.  They wanted to control mutants, to train them, to experiment with them, Meridian sought to master the entire board before she even came close to touching any pieces, to having her invisible hand finally revealed.**

**            Then the vacuum of Sinister being driven underground, Apocalypse supposedly destroyed and Magneto slaughtered in Genosha.  She knew it was her time.  At first she had considered bringing her army of denizens together with but a figurative snap of her finger and taking Genosha fromthe rubble heap to be her kingdom.  But kingdoms needed figureheads and figureheads became targets of both governments and madmen.  Meridian prided herself on being smarter.  The others wantedto affect those walking the Earth, Meridian wanted to be mistress of the literal ants, the unseen ones that could rise up and consume any morsel so swiftly, disassemble and devour it so expediently, that it would disappear unnoticed.**

**            Madripoor was just such the fruit she would take.  The invasion had left it weak enough that she could slip in and hungry enough that she could feed it poision.  Already six of her agents were on the island ready to bring about the next stage in her plan, the overt hand that would bring the X-Men, any X-Men to her.  The confrontation was inevitable.  But when she got word from one of her Hellfire Club deep cover agents about them protecting the Black King, one X-Men in particular had caught her eye.  And luckily enough, like the chessmaster, she had a piece in play that would lure that exact team to her den.**

**            And then.....well, then Meridian would become visible as simply a piece on the board.  Because if they saw she was in truth orchestrating half of the board, millions of them for so long, she would have to forsake them.**

**            Cassandra Nova had been a wild spike killing sixteen million in one manipulation but Meridian had anticipated such a piece in play one day.**

**            Sixteen million!**

**            Meridian's ultimate targets totalled four billion, all living breathing, walking beings who didn't know that she had deemed them dead before their first breaths.**

**Sanctuary, Australia:**

**            "You have been infiltrated!" the man whispered into Cecilia's ear.  "I am not the enemy but I am risking my life, the life of my family to tell you this.  Please do not raise the alarm until I can explain."**

**            Cecilia considered her options, her hand was still on the comm unit on the wall, about to hit the button that would alert her teammates around town.  But the man sounded s desperate and he had yet to harm her.  She could listen.  Running a clinic in some of the toughest neighborhoods in New York City taught her that sometimes people couldn't come clean until they knew they could trust you.  Praying that the same rules applied to Mutant World, she lowered her hand from the comm link.**

**            "Thank you," he said then released his grip over her mouth.**

**            "Thank you.  Can I turn around or is that a problem for you too?" Cecilia asked calmly, centering her mind to call up her force field in a split second.**

**            "Yes," he said and she turned around and was genuinely surprised to see a spaceman.  She opened her mouth to say something then shook her head and closed it.  "You are of the X-Men, yes?"**

**            "Yes, I am.  Sorry, I'm a new member.  Not as accustomed as the others to casually meeting a----?  Ummm, you don't look human, no offense, what are you?" she asked of the light brown skinned man.  He kind of reminded her of Warren.  "Hey, are you---?"**

**            "Yes, Shi'ar.  My name is Hunter.  I am one of the Imperial Guard," he nodded perfunctorily from within his metallic body suit and head piece, only his face exposed.  "I am here because of the infestation within your midst."**

**            "Infestation?  Ummm, I'm the resident doctor and I've checked everyone's health in the X-Men, here and in the States.  Everyone is fine."**

**            "Not your people, a township on one of your continents.  Though the Shi'ar Empire has left this region of space, calling you X-Men an infestation unto yourselves because of the Mummudrai, the Brood are here."**

**            "Ok, ok, wait a second.  Why are you here then, from what I understood no Shi'ar or Imperial Guard are suppose to be here ever again because of Cassandra Nova's ruining of your empire.  Sorry about that by the way."**

**            "Your comrades saved my family line several years ago.  I owe you X-Men a blood debt that my children and wife are still alive.  I found a way to come here undetected to warn you.  As Lilandra was leaving, her command vessel did a scan of your planet and found the Brood village.  I returned after the ship had left the sector to recon the village."**

**            "Ok, then why didn't the Shi'ar come back for you?  They were to leave tracking posts or satellites or whatever the Star Wars translation is so that they would insure we never had contact again."**

**            "I am dead."**

**            "Excuse me?" Cecilia said with furrowed brow, he looked perfectly healthy to her.**

**            "It was trap.  The Brood knew of my surveillance and obtained the codes to my jump ship in orbit around your moon.  My ship is hidden here but the infestation must be destroyed before they can get to the jump point.  If the Brood, of such massive numbers as are there, were to strike the Shi'ar Empire now, all would be lost."**

**            "Ok, hunter, why not just warn your people?  And then tell us before today?" Cecilia asked incredulously.  "If a town has been contaminated _this_ world is in danger."**

**            "To alert my people would mean the death of my entire line.  Forty-seven direct relatives.  And do not be so sure that I am the only Shi'ar agent on this world.  We have been watching your world for centuries.  I could not make contact with any of you until I intercepted your intentions to come here by monitoring the Institute.  I don't have much time left."**

**            "Why?  What could be more dangerous than what you've already told me?"**

**            "I am dead."**

**            "You keep saying that!  What do you mean?"**

**            "I do not have much time in this life.   I fight now to save the future of this world and what is left of my people.  I have been impregnated with one of the Brood."  **

**Sydney, Australia:**

**            Alex Rosten turned in his chair ever so slightly so that he could see the Security Council as they looked at the viewer screen on the far wall.  Like most of these councils his seat and the monitor were the only things in light, the five council members were in shadows.**

**            Games.**

**            But he played along, though it would be child's play to find out their names, their children's favorite colors, their dirty little secrets and libidinous joys.  He played along because they were his employers for the time being, his contract still had another ten years on it.  An out clause, of course, at his discretion but if and when he exercised the clause it would be because of their fault, not his.  It would be important to the rest of the international community that it was clearly the Council's fault and not Rosten's.**

**            Reputation was everything.**

**            On the screen were the outlaw X-Men.  Well this group in Australia supposed weren't of the outlaw branch.  Except for Cargill, she had some potential for going bad according to her personality profile.  The whole Genoshan thing.  What if she just went ballistic? Was the Council's fear.  But that's why they had Rosten, to handle potential fears.**

**            "I'm to make contact soon, I figured a basic management team.  We're in negotiations with the X Corp and Xavier now.  He understands that he's expanding himself exponentially and will need governments to trust him so he's being extremely forthcoming.  You've established an excellent rapport with him."**

**            One man spoke form the end.  "Australia is a vast continent but with a low population.  We can afford to be gracious and from the abundance of files you have, we can use there expertise and help in a wide range of areas."**

**            The woman in the center added.  "We don't have a team of heroes like most nations do and while the risk of an attack similar to Genosha is possible one day, the benefits for our continent far outweigh the risk.  Mutants, happy ones, are a vast untapped resource."**

**            "When it becomes clear to the international community what you're doing, I hope that you aren't liable to back away from this policy.  The X-Men and Xavier aren't enemies I would want to have.  By me, I of course, mean you," Alex grinned.**

**            "We're committed.  Take some times to work out details but tell Xavier he has our support," another man said.**

**            "Good.  I'll take my leave then," with that Alex walked out of the room, reminding himself to buy up as many shares of stock that he could get his hands on of Australian stock.  The first continent to make an active commitment to allying itself with mutants in exchange for technology and industrial support?  A done deal.  He was walking on land of the next super power of not just this planet but if things went well over the next century, the solar system.**

**Tokyo, Japan:**

**            Dani peaked around the corner at the dozens of police cars, ambulances and city emergency service workers, news cameras and hundreds of bystanders.  A lot like the old days.  You could always tell by the crowds afterwards where Xavier's students had been, lots of damage.  As far as she knew only two people had been killed by Channel inhabiting the Black Queen's body but Shaw and fellow X-Man had been kidnapped by him.  She'd been trying her comm unit for twenty minutes now and no Angel or Northstar, who were last seen pursuing Channel's accomplices. The situation looked grim and Dani had a feeling it was only going to get worse.**

**            "Hey, chief, Bobby needs to lay down, that building brace he created drained him good," Paulie said to her from the alleyway they'd hidden in, a gaunt Bobby Drake cradled in his arms.  Iceman had used his power to the utmost to keep the Yashida skyscraper from falling on top of them by literally freezing it in place, almost in it's entirety.  That was still too huge of a concept for Dani to swallow.  A forty story building?  Iceman was no longer looking like the goofball she'd always thought of him as.**

**            Dani felt a pang in her heart, her psi link with Warren was down, which meant he was either under Channel's control or dead.  She didn't know which one would be worse and Paulie had even less field experience than she did.  Warren and Bobby were the senior X-Man on the Blue Team but Warren had unofficially delegated her his second in commander, their psi rapport making their work seamless.**

**            "Hold still so I can get this right," Dani said as she faced her two teammates.  She focused on a specific image and Paulie and Bobby, one unconscious and the other in tattered ruins of a tuxedo were dressed to the nines again in beautiful evening wear.  What she most desired to see.  The hotel Warren had them booked at wasn't too far away, they could get there and Dani could call in the other half of the Blue Team from their base in Australia. **

**            They couldn't do this caper alone.**

**Four Seasons,**

**Tokyo, Japan:**

**            "How are you?" Dani asked Bobby, he was sitting in the Jacuzzi up to his neck in freezing cold water, a dozen buckets that had been full of ice around him.**

**            "I feel a lot better.  Thanks to you two," Bobby groaned.  "I've got a migraine like you wouldn't believe but I'll be ready to help once we figure out where the others are.  What made you think of an ice bath?"**

**            "Actually that was Paulie," Dani said as Paulie came up behind her eating a hamburger.**

**            "Way to go, Paulie, who woulda thunk you had such good ideas in you?" Bobby laughed then starting coughing.**

**            "Up yours, Icy, I actually read through all the files Charlie X had on my teammates and I simply reasoned that you'd dehydrated your body with that ice stunt that is still on the news I might add.  The Mayor thinks it may take a week to thaw out the Yashida building," Paulie laughed.  "If I hadn't of been there I wouldn't believe it.  You froze like the entire fucking block!"**

**            "It was impressive, Bobby, you saved a lot of lives with that stunt," Dani chimed in.  "Channel used Selene's power very recklessly to try and kill us, I didn't think we had a chance.  We can't make the mistake of going easy on him because he's co-opted someone's body."**

**            "You think he's done the same to Warren and Jean-Paul?" Bobby asked.**

**            Dani nodded.  "Or worse.  I can't think of any other reason why my rapport with Warren would be shut off so completely.  **

**            "So half our team are part of this Hannibal Lector wannabe's army now?" Paulie sighed.  "Jesus!  The Marines was never this dicey."**

**            "I tried calling the others in Sanctuary.  No answer.  Which means that they're probably on a mission.  We're on our own," Dani said.  "I don't want to wait too long to get to Channel, he's a killer who has no reason to keep our people or Shaw and Selene alive, we don't have time to call to America for help."**

**            "Then what's the plan, chief?" Bobby said as he reached for a towel and climbed out of the Jacuzzi.  Dani turned her head slightly as Paulie started laughing.**

**            "Ouch, Drake, cold is not your little friends' friend, eh?  I can't imagine a power that would do such constant damage to my pride and joy!" Paulie hooted, pointing at what couldn't be seen.**

**            "Up yours, Paulie!" Bobby muttered back, blushing.**

**            "Uhhhh, Drake, I think you're confusing me with JP, who if I remember correctly was your date earlier this evening."**

**            Dani couldn't help but smile as Bobby walked into his bedroom, the ribbing that a true team gave each other was something she hadn't realized she'd missed so much.  Bobby and Paulie, not often considered much in the raw power department, we're warriors at heart, she trusted them more as each minute went by.**

**            Dani and Paulie went into the luxurious living room and waited until Bobby came out of his room in a towel, the 60 inch plasma screen TV on mute, but on the news about the Yashida Towers.  She had a fragment of a plan but it would be dicey at best.**

**            "Ok, boys, listen up.  My psi rapport with Warren is constant, but my link to him is stronger than his to me.  If he's being mentally suppressed as I think Channel does to his victims then that's probably why I can't sense him.  However, I may be able to push myself through into Warren and get a visual or a clue to where he is.  The danger is for all of my psi abilities, I'm no telepath, it will be a clumsy barrage of energy at him.  My psi energy can be wild.  I could fry his brain.  I don't know what shape that will leave him in."**

**            Bobby spoke up.  "Dani, I've known Warren almost half my life, if he's in that freak's clutches he'd take the risk of dying rather than be turned into a puppet.  Apocalypse did that to him, Warren would rather you scramble his eggs forever than he harm anyone as Channel will make him do."**

**            "Ok, so we might be able to locate him but the question is can the three of us take them out, including our teammates?"**

**            "In a fair fight, no.  But maybe we're thinking of this the wrong way.  Maybe we need to make a call to the Hellfire Club and ask their precious Inner Circle for some back-up.  They have a vested interest in getting Shaw and Selene back safely or avenging them if they're dead," Bobby suggested.**

**            "That sounds like a plan but who else do we know in the Inner Circle who could put us in touch with their Japan people?" Paulie asked and looked at the sour looks Bobby and Dani exchanged.**

**            "Ms. Bitch herself," Dani groaned.**

**            "Emma Frost," Bobby finished.**

**Four Seasons Hotel,**

**Tokyo, Japan:**

**"Well, well, well," the astral projection of Emma Frost telepathically said as she appeared in the center of the Presidential suite.  "My, all three of you have moved up in the world.  The members of your team who are accustomed to these surroundings all unaccounted for due to the efforts of only _one mutant?"_**

**"Including the Black Queen and your former pimp, Shaw," Dani shot back icily.  **

**Emma glared at Dani.  "Careful, girl.  There was a time when it was only my compassion that kept me from twisting you into whatever pretzel I desired."**

**"Run that on someone else, Frost.  I was the only New Mutant who didn't go catatonic and need your telepathic ministrations.  Which means one of two things: they weren't as strong as me and I'm strong enough not to need you.  Now cut the trademark bitchery and cut to the chase."**

**"When the time comes, Moonstar I'm going to train you to be a telepath.  And I promise you all of your bravado will crumble under all of the neurosis and subliminated fears we'll have to indepthly explore," she stood a fraction of an inch from the impassive Cheyenne warrior but in the end Dani turned away, disgusted and at the same time revealed for the fear that held true.  One day, as her powers kept maturing, if she survived, she would need an Omega level telepath to train her and the numbers were dwindling of who she could choose.**

**"Emma, are you done?" Bobby asked tiredly, he'd been through Emma's mind fucks before. The rub wasn't the words or the public humiliation as much as the truth behind them.   He wouldn't just stand by and see Emma piss on Dani the way she had him.  On every young person's concern about fulfilling their potential and at what cost.**

**Emma sauntered over to him, her astral body undulating and bouncing in ways that seemed impossible for gravity or lack thereof to provide.  "Cerebra enhances me so much, Bobby.  To the point where right now I'm looking at the thoughts, the instincts you used to accomplish the feat at Yashida Towers.  The only thing more impressive than the fact that you did it, is that I used your body to do that and more years earlier.  But you're catching up, I'm marginally impressed."**

**"Jesus, when was the last time this bim got some pipe?" Paulie laughed.  "You can hear her knees scratching to the bone from here!"**

**Dani and Bobby shocked by his blunt outburst couldn't help but stifle their laughter as Emma blanched then turned and glared hatefully at Paulie.  She didn't like having the spotlight taken from her.  "Mr. Provenzano.  Yes, you too, like these others have immense potential."  Her astral form leaned down to where he was reclining on the couch.  "And secrets.  Secrets that I'm looking at right now.  Two words.  Cowboy.  Video."**

**"Are you done?  We've all got Achilles Heels and you've kicked each one.  We're not the Gold team or Storm's team and we got our asses handed to us.  We get that.  Can you help us or do we have to do this alone?" Dani asked when she saw how pale Paulie had gone.**

**"We need contact with the Inner Circle.  We need back up," Bobby reminded, "it's in their best interests to help us."**

**"Oh, I didn't have to make this astral trip, I just wanted to make sure the "B" Team was living up to all of our low expectations.  I phoned ahead.  Your help is here," Emma cooed and there was a sharp knock at the door.**

**Paulie gladly hopped off of the couch and nearly ran to open the door.  In the doorway stood a tall, strikingly handsome Latino man, close to 6'4 in a black designer suit and thin clear glasses.  Everything about him bespoke privilege and command.**

**"X-Men, Carlos Allegra, the Black Bishop.  Carlos, X-men," Emma introduced casually.  Allegra calmly walked the length of the marble floors into the sunken living room and stood before Emma's astral image.  She raised her hand and he leaned down, simulating holding it and kissing it gently.**

**"La Reina Blanca," he said in a heavy rumbling voice.**

**"El Obispo Negro," she replied.**

**Emma stared intently at him for several long minutes, their communication obviously both telepathic and purposefully omitting of the three X-men, then they both smiled and he laughed heartily.  "You haven't changed at all, mi Reina, I've missed you at the functions.  We all have."**

**"Thank you, Carlos.  These are allies of mine and of Sebastian's.  You understand the price of failure on your part?"**

**"Always."**

**"Espléndido.  Good hunting." And with a small smirk Emma was gone in a hazy flicker.**

**Dani looked around, still feeling the White Queen's telepathic presence. **

**_Excellent plan to find Warren.  However know the longer and more often you connect the deeper the ties with our fair Angel.  Have a care, Danielle, he will satisfy desires you admit and others even you are unaware of.  When you're ready contact me and I'll teach you how to make the rapport your contrivance and not you its concubine_****, Emma telepathically whispered for Dani's ears alone.            **

**"So you're a member of the Inner Circle, a Lord Cardinal, pallie?" Paulie said smugly with folded arms standing in front of the Black Bishop who towered over him by several inches.**

**"Yes, Mr. Provenzano, I am.  It is an honor to both be within the Circle and my honor to be called upon to aid my el rey y la reina," Allegra said calmly, turning away from Paulie as if he were a child who couldn't understand such an adult allegiance.  "Downstairs is a van full of trusted Hellfire elite guards, we are at your discretion, Ms. Moonstar.  Emma apprised me of the situation in detail and that you have a way to locate the exact surroundings of our mutual associates?  The mutant locator we possess only has a general location approximated."**

**"Yes, I share a psychic rapport with Angel, even if he's been co-opted by the mutant Channel, I should be able to see where he's at.  Let's hope they're all together," Dani said as she sat down on the floor and focused her mind as Prof. X had taught her so long ago during her training.**

**"And what do you bring to the table, Allegra?  We, X-Men don't run with Armani clad pussies," Paulie snickered, "no matter their references.  We need raw power."**

**"Number one, this is Brioni.  I find Armani passé.  And number two, I am well equipped to kill you at this instant in spite of your invulnerability.  Would you like me to show you or will you take my word for it?" Allegra's dark green eyes focused on Paulie's and the tension in the room ratcheted up tenfold and then something odd happened, Dani opened her eyes.  There had been a ripple on the psionic plane, as if Allegra had just called something.  Something big from somewhere.  Hovering over Allegra now was the visage of Death, but not his, of many others.**

**"Paulie, let it go," Bobby murmured, he'd been around enough that when someone made a threat and glanced across a room and he, _Iceman_, got a chill up his spine, it was time to back off.**

**Dani saw the Death image recede and Allegra turned his eyes to her.**

**"You saw?' he asked calmly.**

**"I saw," Dani nodded then smiled and added.  "Harm any of mine, act without my go and I'll show why yours doesn't impress me."  And with that, Dani allowed her face to slip for a second and showed him her Valkyrie face. **

**"Madre!" he said and stepped back, then glanced at the two young men.  They hadn't seen the sleight of haand she'd performed.  Not only could she control it but she could intend it for his eyes only.**

**"You may bring It but I _am_ It," she grinned then closed her eyes and looked for the mental thread that lead to her teammate because if it didn't exist that meant he was dead.**

**Dani found herself in a tube.  A duct of some sort.  First she had been gently reaching for the link between herself and Warren and then she was crawling through a cylindrical tube.  The tube itself though, beat faintly, felt like something familiar.   The walls of the tube were dark but off in the distance she could see a faint light.  So she crawled.**

**Truth be told, she really didn't like the way her life had gone all mutant weirdness years ago.  Xavier's dedication to this human/mutant coalition seemed alternately immature and gloriously unattainable.  But here she was burrowing deeper and deeper into what she felt must be her mind's interpretation of the link with Warren because of the brotherhood Xavier had instilled in them all.  While she expected that she had a deep emotional sense of the man, she didn't know Warren all that well and here she was risking her life to save his.  And she knew that he and the others would do the same for her.  Perhaps it was that existential comfort that kept them all bonded to Xavier no matter how far they traveled or the time that went by.  There would always be someone there for you, caring about you because you had one of these gaudy X's on your belt.**

**Without even so much as a warning she fell out of the tube into a small room.  Plush carpeting, a rolling fireplace and Warren standing there in a silk robe.**

**"Warren?" she whispered unsure of where the hell she was.**

**"Danielle," he graciously helped her to her feet.  "You look wonderful."**

**And she did, still in the designer dress he'd given her for the Hellfire Club party that seemed like it had happened years ago.  On the walls of the small room were solid X's imprinted with the professor's face and occasionally Jean Grey's.**

**"What is this, Warren?  Where are we?"**

**"In my fallout shelter," he grinned.**

**"Your mind," she nodded understanding that this must be what Xavier had taught his students to retreat into if their minds were being co-opted.  Her being a psi, her very being was her "room" but a non-psi would need a tangible visual to maintain their core self within.**

**"I knew eventually you would try to find me.  Hope the tube wasn't too tight, I had to make it only for you.  Channel is out there.  In me.  Trying to get in here," Warren said calmly but she could feel a sense of something lurking around behind the walls.  Like a shark brushing past her leg in water.**

**"I understand.  The cavalry is on the way, don't worry I just need to get a fix on where you are.  You'll have to open up.  Let me see through your eyes."**

**"It's bad, Dani.  Channel has been planning this for awhile.  The other murders were just to get Shaw's interest, to open a conduit ploy to get at Shaw, to challenge his ego," Warren explained then smiled at her.  "I haven't been this deep inside of this room in years.  I'd almost forgotten it was here, it's a sub-hypnotic suggestion, a last ditch place to retain my psyche while under attack."**

**Dani could feel the fear ratcheting up in the room.  Warren was terrified of opening back up.  Of waking up.**

**"Don't worry, Warren I'm here.  We X-Men are here with you," she smiled and looked over the fire place.  There was an elegant portrait of him and her embracing, looking deeply into each others eyes, his wings carrying them aloft.  "Whoa, heavy imagery."**

**"Sorry, I can't control what's in here.  Give him time.  Give me time to accept the portrait in here out there, ok?" he smiled.**

**"Ok, Warren," Dani said then wondered if she was going to get the time to learn to accept an attraction, an intimate relationship that felt thrust upon her.**

**"Thrust would be the wrong concept to use with us so close right now," Warren laughed and Dani blushed, her thoughts as naked to him as his were to hers.  He leaned down and kissed her gently.  "So that you know me."**

**And then she felt her eyes flutter open.**

**A dungeon of some sort.  Her arms were twisting behind her, her wings strapped to a wall.**

**No, she didn't have wings.**

**The X-Men would come.**

**"I AM ALL!" thundered through her head suddenly, a foul smelling voice.  Smelling voice?  Essence.  The essence itself was unclean.  Channel.**

**Seeing through Warren's eyes.  Their thoughts were jumbling together.  **

**Psyche focused on herself on holding onto the connection with Warren while trying to ignore the Channel being smashing down onto his consciousness.  She realized that if she didn't, Channel could easily climb back through their link and subsume her as well.**

**"We're in a dungeon.  The others are upstairs.  I am----me---Warren is too stubborn to break, too much time with Xavier.  Channel soaks in like a poison.  But it's difficult trying to hold onto him.  Them all.  Selene.  Selene is very strong.  Almost too strong.  I'm connected to Channel too.  He doesn't know I'm here.  Not yet.  He will though.  Angel isn't powerful enough to rate anything more than a sideline possession.  We have to get in there soon, Channel is preparing more needles, permanent needles for Selene and Amara," Psyche said half in a trance inside of the Hellfire Club van that sat on the outskirts of an estate in the Tokyo hillside.**

**"Psyche, how many of them are there besides our people and Channel?" the Black Bishop asked, having changed into a dark leather battle suit much like the one's worn by the four elite Hellfire guards who were in the van also.  Their blank faced masks disconcerting as Bobby and Paulie watched Psyche anxiously, she'd been fading in and out of this trance for the hour it had taken them to get here, mumbling incoherently as she tried to maintain individuality from the other two minds she was connected to.**

**"Warren was brought in by the Hellfire guards that attacked Shaw and he saw another man.  Camus?  Camus.  Camus is Channel's assistant who fires the psi needles into people.  If you can take the others, slow them down I can try and distract Channel, he's spreading himself too thin.  Too thin.  He can't hold Magma and Northstar and the guards with Selene's constant pressure."**

**"Selene, your associates and six Hellfire guards.  Mid level men.  We'll have no trouble at all," Allegra smiled.**

**Amara sat tied to a chair next to Shaw, they'd both been injected with some sort of drug.  She felt both dizzy and nauseous and Shaw didn't look much better.  Before them stood Selene but her bearing was wrong Amara realized.  She held a tumbler of scotch and watched them with a smile.  She was standing like a man.  The mutant Channel still had control of her.  Next to the possessed Selene was a tall thin man, bald with a side arm holster.  But the gun didn't look normal, like either bullets or energy was projected from it.**

**Across the room, Northstar was preparing himself a drink, an evil grin on his face as well.**

**Co-opted too, Amara accepted of her teammate.  She didn't see Angel.  Either he was free or elsewhere and the six Hellfire Guards were positioned at the farthest end of the large ballroom.  Side arms drawn, waiting patiently.  She didn't doubt for an instant that Dani would find a way to find her, would come for her but would it be too late.  Any mutant that could hold Selene, a powerful sorceress and mutant for so long in his thrall could do the same to Amara, if he didn't have a limit on how many he could possess.  Did he have a limit?**

**"Selene is negotiating within here for both o f your lives.  Negotiating fiercely I might add," Selene said calmly then took a long gulp of liquor.  "Shaw I can understand.  Perhaps.  But why you, little X girl?"**

**"I am her liege, even at the loss of her body she would still fight in anyway possible for me," Shaw grunted.  It was obviously a strain for him to speak, his bare chest crusted with blood, the kinetic energy he'd absorbed having healed his gunshot wound but obviously not enough.  He was pale and ashen, his head lolling from the drugs but there was fierceness in his gaze, a ferocity that said he was a lion, had been one for a long time and would never mewl like a kitten, no matter the circumstances.**

**"Is that the only reason, Shaw?  I sense she would see you dead," Selene taunted.  "As time goes on her thoughts become even more open to me, she can't resist my total consumption for long.  I like her body.  I think I'll keep this one for awhile."**

**"You'll have to learn etiquette all over again," Amara snickered.**

**"Funny," Selene said then slapped her across the face, the tumbler smashing and cutting Amara in several places.  "It seems Selene wants to make you her slave, Amara.  Isn't that simply delicious?  But with a vessel like Selene I no longer need to have Camus here inject me into others, portions of my long dead bodies DNA into projectiles to control people.  I can suck the life force out of them and make them my slaves as Selene does.  What an excellent trade don't you think?"**

**"You're a fool, Channel, you won't be able to hold Selene enthralled for long.  She's malevolence personified.  You've been a corpse for what….years?  She's been evil for centuries.  In fact, I suspect she's using you, perhaps even enjoying my predicament," Shaw grinned.**

**"Wouldn't that be a twist, Sebastian?" Selene laughed.  "Though I doubt it," with a flick of her hand it was audible to everyone in the roof as several of Shaw's ribs broke.  Shaw grunted and began sweating, doubling over as far as his bonds would allow but he never cried out, he just looked up.**

**"Very good.  Worthy of the form you hold.  I would warn you both, kill me, Channel, or free me, Selene, because that body will soon feel pain like never before," Shaw spit up blood with the words but Amara saw the look of surprise cross Selene's face.**

**"We should kill him then, Camus, the bald man, said calmly and took a silk scarf from his pocket with an embroidered "C" in scarlet.**

**"And now the serial killer histrionics.  Don't bore me.  Kill me or impress me," Shaw said in disgust then closed his eyes as if he no longer cared for even the sight of them.**

**Amara saw the far wall beginning to glow ever so slightly and at first she dismissed it as merely part of the drugs in her system then she heard a loud scream.  The entire wall shattered as Paulie came crashing through, his arms over his face in what reminded Amara of an improvised fastball special.**

**The six Hellfire guards drew their weapons to fire on the hole, for more X-Men to come through but only Paulie seemed to be making his entrance that way.  As if he entered rooms through walls every day in that fashion, Paulie calmly stood up and dusted off his black and grey uniform and smiled then spoke.  **

**"Wow, it's a full house.  Ok, here's the skinny, Channel---I take it you're still in Morticia Addams, huh?----you vacate and give up or we're gonna kick yer fucking ass back to the graveyard."**

**"We're going to die," Amara muttered to herself.  "Imbecile!"**

**Selene ten feet away from Paulie one instant and then clutching his throat the neck shook her head no.  "I think I'll sup instead."  Her arm began glowing in the life force draining process then she screeched and stumbled back, falling to the floor.**

**"Now!" Paulie shouted into his comm link as the guards and Northstar all reeled from the psychic shock Channel felt as one being occupying multiple bodies.  "Invulnerable to lots of shit,  that draining crap don't work on the kid, bitch---bastard!  Whatever!" Paulie said then kicked Selene with all of his might in the gut sending her sailing into the far wall.**

**Camus shocked, hesitated, unsure of what to do and Amara's eyes bulged as Shaw roared, ripped his way free of his chair and grabbed the man.  He had feigned having no super strength left, biding his time with such perfection that Amara had believed him as had their adversaries.  He held him by the arm and back of the neck, pulling in opposite directions tightly enough that Camus was paralyzed with instant pain and fear that he was about to be ripped in two.**

**"Mi rey!" Allegra said as he came through the hole debris followed by the six Hellfire Guards and two X-Men.  "Take no chances," he instructed his men who calmly turned and shot their Hellfire comrades in the chest and head.**

**"No!" Iceman shouted.**

**"Bobby, they were never going to walk out of here," Psyche said and an unspoken communication passed between her eyes and Allegra's.  They were people who understood the rules of true combat.**

**Paulie hurried to the bar and slugged Northstar who slammed back against the rack of liquor.  "He's down and out.  And I might say that was fun to do."**

**"Black Bishop, I knew you'd lead the assault force.  I take it Emma contacted you?" Shaw said still clutching Camus' throat, the man, half conscious under the pressure.**

**"Yes, mi rey, we were mounting our own search when the X-Men contacted Emma to find me," Allegra said as he walked carefully towards Selene who was crumpled on the floor.**

**"Don't!" Psyche said and stepped between Allegra and Selene, she could see the two souls, Channel and Selene fighting viciously for control of the woman's body.  **

**Finally the obsidian cloak flipped back and Selene stood, an angry snarl on her lips.  "I have the bastard that dared to defile me!"**

**"Don't kill him yet, Selene," Shaw rasped.**

**"Why not?" she demanded enraged.**

**"Iceman, Warren is downstairs, get him.  Quickly.  This might disintegrate into something even nastier than Channel," Psyche said into her comm link sotto voce and he nodded from across the room then ran back out.**

**"Channel is under my protection now," Shaw said and stood, holding Camus above him.  "Isn't that right, Camus?  Or should I call you Channel?"**

**"He's Channel? Amara said in shock as Psyche undid her bonds.**

**"Yes, I believe this man's work has been nothing but a bid for membership into the Inner Circle," Shaw said.  "Though who his sponsor is and who he may've tried to ally with is in question."  Shaw glared at Selene.  "Is that what you were negotiating?  All this time instead of fighting the possession?  Trying to convince him to follow through with the plan and not kill me but merely co-opt my body?  But suddenly he developed a taste for yours?"**

**Selene hesitated for a moment then opened her clutched fist, a dim greenish orb in it.  "Why, my dear Black King I have no idea whatever you're talking about, but you hold his body and I hold his soul.  Shall we reunite them and ask?"**

**Psyche watched this play out.  One side daring the other.  If one of them killed Channel they'd have to pretend this was something it most definitely was not, a murder attempt.  However if they took it to the next level a major battle would break out and with the way Allegra and the Hellfire elite were standing, Selene wouldn't have a chance.  Psyche wasn't sure she cared about anything but her people in the room being in the crossfire.  They'd have to choose sides and that could tip the scales in someone's favor, neither side being preferable victors.**

**"Looks like we got a crime family stand-off," Paulie said popping an Evian and swigging it down from the bar, Northstar hoisted on top of it.**

**"Paulie, zip it!" Psyche snapped.**

**"No, hear me out.  These two gots beef and one or the other may've hired this Channel guy to off the other."**

**"What do you mean hired him?" Selene asked, perplexed for a moment and then understanding dawned that perhaps Shaw had been the true orchestrator.**

**"Well, it reminds me of a squabble back in the old neighborhood.  Carmine, he used to run guns and stolen kitchen appliances, assumed, as you may be, I'm not saying you are, but may be that because he'd----Carmine, you----you get my drift---- negotiated with this Channel deal to off Shaw---who in my neighborhood was played by Vinnie One Eye--------that you're Channel's boss.  But then why is Shaw still alive?  Which is what Carmine had to ask himself too.  Unless he----Vinnie One Eye----Shaw in this here scenario------negotiated a deal with Channel before you, Morticia---Selene---Elvira---whatever------to approach you with this scheme, keep him----Shaw-----alive and keep you under wraps while giving him a perfect reason to off you in front of a patsy witnesses-----us, the do-gooder pigs---X-Men and one of your own----Hellfire Ricky Martin here.  No offense, Allegra."**

**"None taken," Allegra said and they could all see the Latin man taking careful measure of both the Black King and Queen.  It was one thing to willingly serve another to be set up in a private grudge match.**

**"Dear God, even I understood that," Amara sighed and Psyche shook her head.**

**"So how does this play out, did one of you play the other and get played and want the X-men to wipe out the other in front of an Inner Circle witness?" Psyche demanded.  "Wheels within wheels?  I know enough about the Lord Cardinals to know that you can't just wage war on each other unless someone strikes first.  Was this all a twisted game to get one of you to finally make a move on the other?"**

**"There is only one way to maintain the status quo, Sebastian.  Other than a few broken bones and loss of low level operatives, this hasn't been an unmitigated disaster.  The Yashida Tower isn't even relevant to this, I trust.  I nominate Camus to be a member of the Inner Circle.  If you trust my word, as you should, that I had no part in this, you'll see the advantage of having such a man with us as I do.   However......," Selene trailed off.**

**"If you set this up from the get go, you have no enemies and one more ally in your pocket to wipe her out one day," Paulie finished.**

**"I don't know which is scarier, them or the fact that Paulie _speaks them," Psyche said to Amara._**

**"Hold on to this one then, Moonstar.  I petition you, Shaw for the position of Red Queen," Amara said mustering her courage to speak in a loud, determined tone.  The whole room turned to look at her and Psyche saw a twinge of a smile on Shaw's lips.**

**"Now this is interesting----almost like Tommy No Thumbs in Red Hook that time…..," Paulie smiled as he watched excitedly.**

**"Are you freaking crazy?" Psyche shrieked.  "Join them?  Why?"**

**"Selene kept me alive when Channel wanted to kill me but she knows that I am not her ally.  Shaw knows that I am neutral against both of you.  I am the perfect incentive to you both," Amara said.  "Shaw?  Selene?"**

**"The young lady does have a point," Shaw admitted.  "Channel is an unknown for us both but of considerable value to the Inner Circle as is she.  Where one of us could say no to his membership, hers as a deal sealer will negate fear from the other of another reprisal, if in fact this ever was that."**

**"If in fact…," Selene said then nodded.  "I agree to her provisional nomination and Camus' as well."**

**"As do I.  Amara Aquilla for Red Queen and Camus for what?  Black Rook?" he asked of Selene.**

**"Yes, sounds good.  Very good," Selene nodded, the tension beginning to ebb in the room.**

**"Most interesting," Allegra said to himself then walked over to Amara and kissed her hand.  "Welcome, mi Reina Rojo."**

**"Thank you, Carlos," Amara smiled weakly.**

**Psyche watched as Shaw lowered the unconscious to the floor where two Hellfire guards immediate secured him while two more began tending to Shaw's wounds.  She walked over to where Paulie was leaning on a still unconscious Northstar.  They still had the problem of Channel being a wanted serial killer but they were in shape to try and take him away from the Hellfire Club, especially with Amara having pulled such an about face.  She didn't like it, it was wrong, a killer getting away because it was unclear as to who was pulling his strings but it a possible bloodbath had calmed, she wouldn't stir it back up again by challenging nearly everyone in the room.  And in a way, Amara's bid would buy them safe passage out of here as well but after that, there was something even more sinister to be dealt with.**

**"I have Warren, Psyche, he's unconscious but seems fine," Iceman said over the comm link.**

**"Yes, Iceman, I can feel his thoughts again, Channel's mental attacks are gone.  If they were even his and not Selene's.  It's all questionable at this point."**

**"Hey, feel better, chief, we settled this without a fight.  That's a good thing right.  Good where I come from."**

**"No, Paulie it's a very bad thing.  A fight would've cleared up all of this shit," Psyche said as she watched Allegra and Amara together, the true conspirators with Channel she suspected.**

**They'd never met and yet Amara had called him Carlos, which no one in the room had said.  Neither Shaw nor Selene had hired Channel, which is why everyone, X-Men included were alive.  Amara had to get herself a seat in the Hellfire Club as the new Red Queen and she'd manipulated events long before this confrontation to do so.**


	4. Darkness Within

X-Men: Sanctuary Issue # 4 By Kyle Phoenix  
  
San Madre, Argentina, South America:  
  
"We can't get any closer?" Nightcrawler asked incredulously, trying to look at a town from five miles away even through advanced binoculars wasn't easy.  
Hunter pointed to the valley that bordered the town on three sides. "They chose this town because there is only one avenue of land entrance. They also have monitoring sensors throughout the valley ridges."  
"Ok, so how do we get in and what do we do once we're there?' Spike asked, her and the rest of the X-Men crouched in the under brush on the side of a cliff.  
"Yes, how do we separate out the infected from the non-infected?" Karma asked.  
"There is no separation. All of them are Brood infected. The entirety of the town," Hunter replied.  
"All of them?!" Frenzy asked in shock. "There have got to be about five thousand people there. We're no match for that!"  
"We have to find a way to contain them and then destroy them all," Talisman offered. "They've stayed together obviously to build a strong enough base of power to leave here and attack the Shi'ar Empire. Or what's left of it. But their presence here maintains the constant threat of simply their split off into a thousand different directions and infecting the whole planet. The world would be overrun, conquered before we could even marshal a defense."  
"Maybe we should call in the Avengers? I mean just as consultants, I'm not saying we can't do this, just consultants?" Spike suggested.  
They could take the continent before we or any other heroes could get here in force. Also it would be noticeable if suddenly the Avengers came here.. Which brings us back to how we stop them without a nuclear warhead? Chamber asked telepathically.  
"My plan is risky. Within my ship is a cryogenically frozen Brood, the one that you saw, Karma," Hunter nodded at Karma who grimaced at the memory of Tran phasing through the ship and coming face to face with the monster. "We cover ourselves in its' secretions, a resin, so as not to "smell" different than the other residents. Infiltrate the town and get to the reactor core of the star ship they must be building at this point, under the town and set it to self-destruct. Destroying the town and all of it's residents before they can achieve flight," Hunter explained.  
"The Defenders? I've heard good things about them. Ok, not good things but doesn't the Hulk work with them? The Hulk would be good here. Hulk smash, Hulk kill, Hulk stand in the middle of a town going nuclear. You know, that kind of stuff, Spike offered.  
"Again, the same problem, Spike, contacting them in time without alerting the Brood. Hunter, are you sure this resin will safeguard us within that nest? If it doesn't we're as good as dead. They will impregnate us for sure," Nightcrawler shivered. "It's happened to me before. I do not wish that upon my darkest enemy and I'm not sure I have the right to ask any of you to risk that, even as X-Men." "I concur. Whoever is insane enough to do this has to be prepared for that eventuality," Spike pointed out. "I've studied the X-Men's files on them, it's not an easy process to remove the eggs once they're in." Bloody hell! When you put it that way, how about Thor? He's a tough one. The hammer, the whole God thing going on. Cecelia might have a point, a God in spirit and one in form might help, Chamber said somberly.  
"Should anyone be infected we have my ship to go into space. There is still an operational Stargate on the border of the star system next to this one. We simply take my ship through it and back and the eggs are purged from our systems," Hunter said.  
"Ok, is it just me or are there about fourteen thousand different ways we can all see this plan going afoul?" Frenzy laughed.  
"For one, I can't have a Brood egg implanted within me, it's an evil species. I am a-----------nun is the best approximate term for why my body can't be compromised in such a fashion but I will back you up to the end," Talisman explained. "I have several very dangerous spells that I would be reticent to use against humans but that I can cause a lot of damage with to that town."  
Nightcrawler nodded. "It might actually work best if only some of us are infiltrators but which ones? If there's a Brood Queen at the center of this mess, she'll know me. Hunter would set off their suspicions immediately. We need to get in, ascertain the threat level and at the same time leave a rear guard to either aid in escape or go for help. I doubt that the rest of our squad will get back from Tokyo to Australia in time to rocket over here."  
Karma cleared her throat and they all turned to her, she'd been silent for quite some time. "My brother Tran suggests myself and Frenzy. Her mutant enhanced strength makes her the most able to resist them in a close quarter's fight and that would leave Nightcrawler here to teleport us out. And I can approach with the knowledge that Tran will be able to dissipate this body, even if I'm rendered unconscious."  
"Thank you for voting me in," Frenzy muttered. "I'm not saying I'm not willing to do it, I just want to make sure I don't turn into one of those slugs."  
"Chamber can act as a telepathic relay to the two of them," Talisman nodded and I can teleport into the town should they be close to being overwhelmed and wreck havoc like they can't imagine to cover the escape."  
"Hey, what about Heroes for Hire? I've got a little bit saved up, we could all chip in and you know get Powerman down here," Spike grinned  
Nightcrawler agreed wondering if Archangels portion of the team was working out so well in strategic terms. There seemed to be fluidity to their grouping. He wondered if there was relevance to Talismans assertion that Xavier had a deep influence over the one's who became X-men. Quasi-X- Men comprised this squad and those who had never been members before. He pushed it out of his mind. Something to ponder another day. If they survived this battle. "Spike, Talisman, work on a way to contain the town itself. Hunter, Chamber, wait for the signal of where I am to teleport into to activate the reactor's destruction and pull everyone out."  
"This all sounds too simple out loud," Spike said in a worried tone.  
"Oh, I'm sure it will fall apart three ways from Sunday but we'll pull it out of the bag!" Nightcrawler answered with a dark mirth. "That's what X-Men do!"  
  
Somewhere:  
  
The scrying pool swirled in the center of the cavern. Small insects darted around the stone floor next to the ornate wooden chair, runes carved into the dark marble floor. A thin green hand grasped the arm rest then raised a single finger and the Sanctuary base appeared, next to it, slowly another image produced of Amara dressed as the Red Queen.  
"Very interesting," Wraith chuckled, "I hadn't expected her to move so fast."  
"No one did," Selene said as she sauntered over to the scrying pool, her heels clicking delicately on the floor. "It seems we may have to step up our operations faster than anticipated."  
"Ah. War. Always a median option though this will claim quite a bit. Are you prepared?" Wraith asked her.  
"This incarnation of the X-Men has far more possibilities than the others. More power over a greater span of disciplines. They are also not of such a puritanical bent as some of the others. They are..disenfranchised in a sense. "  
"Yes, my hand is within them already. I am both pleased and troubled by how easily they've been co-opted on so many levels," Wraith replied. "Again, dear Selene, are you prepared?"  
"Yes, yes, I am," Selene promised then drew her cloak around her and vanished.  
  
Four Seasons Hotel, Tokyo, Japan:  
  
A battered copy of Louise Erdrich's Tracks in her hand, Danielle Moonstar sat by the window of the enormous master suite reading by the two hour old sunlight. Or at least that's what it looked like. Warren Worthington sat on the edge of his bed in pajama bottoms, having recovered from being held prisoner by a serial killer the night before, his wings occasionally expanding and contracting the way one would stretch their arms. He stared out of the glass terrace doors at the horizon. To the casual observer it would look like two lovers, quietly in each other's presence before breakfast. In truth, there was a fierce argument going on through their psionic rapport.  
Listen to me, Warren, I'm right!  
That Amara set us all up? Every one of us? The X-Men? Channel? The Hellfire Club? That's ridiculous! No offense but she's not that bright.  
What's that suppose to mean? I saw that flash! For her age? Like me?!  
Get out of my head if you don't want my honest opinion!  
Warren, she knew the Black Bishop's name---Carlos---Carlos Allegra but only myself, Paulie and, Bobby had been introduced to him. She'd never met him before but she knew his name!  
Maybe they've met before. She has been bumming around Europe. He's a Spaniard, very big in oil and textiles in Europe. I've known of him and his family for years, in passing.  
So how come she's the only one out of the whole scenario who wins, huh?  
Why would she do this, Danielle?  
To avenge her mother, to gain status in one stroke, to become a better bitch, I don't know! She can kill Selene with Shaw's help and be a Red Queen in the friggin' Hellfire Club----a position last held by Phoenix!  
The Phoenix entity. Not the real Jean Grey.  
Whatever! Are you listening to me?  
Yes, you're like a goddamn boom box in my head. Tone it down.  
Sorry. I just can't talk to anyone else about this. Not yet. I don't even want it verbalized out loud.  
I understand that but what are we suppose to do? Confront her? Stop her? From doing what? How? She averted a war in the Hellfire Club by placating both sides.  
She doesn't know the whole story.  
What story, Dani, what else are you holding back?  
She blames Selene for her mother's death but she's never faced up to the fact that Selene may be her mother. Selene went out of her way to fight Channel not to kill her. He said Selene was inside of her body desperately negotiating for Amara's life. She's had a thousand opportunities to off her and hasn't. And in Nova Roma, things happened, I got a feeling.... Warren, it may look like a solution, like a better way but this has got time bomb written all over it.  
Ok, calm, down, chief, we're ok. I'll keep my eagle eyes open. I'm not saying I'm convinced and we can't know without a telepath scanning Amara but it does add a new angle to things.  
Dani took a deep breath and put down her book as he walked over to the chair in front of the terrace doors, his feet sinking into the plush carpeting. He leaned down so that they were facing each other, his eyes twinkling with thrill.  
Yeah, it is, she whispered in his head.  
What? Oh. You caught that feeling? It does feel like it. Being married. Yes, it does feel like that sometimes. I'm sorry that we're locked into this rapport. We didn't have a chance to get to know each other, to get comfortable with each other first. Scott and Jean did. We all did with the professor. That jaunt to finding you? Into your head, into your soul? That was too much, too fast. I remember pieces, Warren admitted. Not everything. What did you see? "Too much," Dani said aloud then got up and walked out, shutting down her end of the rapport.  
  
The entire fourteen foot high by twenty long bedroom wall was mirrored. A single piece of glass. And Amara studied herself very carefully. A red bustier with matching bottom briefs, thigh high boots and the heavy red velvet, silk lined cloak. She'd added her X-men uniform under the boots and briefs, her choker with the monogrammed X on it. One of the team but also meshed with something else. The Red Queen of the Hellfire Club Inner Circle. The last person to bear that title had destroyed a sun, killed 5 billion people. Her fair-haired tresses hanging below her shoulder was a beautiful effect upon the deep blood red of her cloak. She smiled and her eyes flashed for a moment and her hair turned to flickering, dripping flames, a corona of ever changing energy that said much more than simple locks of hair. But to display her power would be ostentatious. Something a commoner would do. She pulled her power in ever so slightly so that there was a gentle glow radiating from her skin, her face, as if she were glistening constantly and she knew that her temperature was at least fifteen to twenty degrees higher than a normal persons. Yes, that was a delicious effect. She focused and set her skins temperature at closer to 120 degrees, along with the glisten.  
  
Yes, yes, that was it. Amara laughed heartily then twirled around. Dani was standing in the doorway watching her. "Danielle, you didn't knock," Amara playfully chided. Dani's face was sour and her voice hard. "No, I didn't. I'll cut to the chase, Amara, what kind of damn game are you playing at?" "Oh, I am not playing. I am a Red Queen in heart and soul," she beamed. "You don't even know what the hell that means. You're, excuse the pun, playing with fire. Why would you do this? You've been to the future, I've been to the future! Selene got Roberto to join and now you. It corrupts you two!" Dani hissed, trying to keep her voice down from the others in the suite hearing. "Then stay closer, my friend. Don't judge me, but be my counsel," Amara walked closer and stumbled, falling to one knee from the hip high boots narrow heel. "Now these are going to take some getting used too!" "Shaw and Selene will eat you alive!' Dani said helping her stand. "Cute trick with the warm flesh. Is that for the men there?" "Or women," Amara said with a wicked grin. "Dani, I have my reasons and we averted a massacre between Shaw and Selene. A strong third party will keep them focused if not on peace then at least hesitant before war. I represent the X-Men and the future." "The X-Men?" Dani snorted. "This is so far from Xavier's dream, so far." "Dani, don't tell me you've bought into his prattle all of these years. The answer lies somewhere between Charles and Magneto, a third option. Personally, I want my children to live, to live a good life whether they be born powerful mutants or humans. Throughout history position and privilege have provided that kind of security." "I don't----." "You don't know what it's like to be alone, Dani! I am alone and lost in this world. Part future, part thousands of years old. I may be too many things to be simply a fool or an X-Man or even a woman but I will be a survivor, you of all people, your people know that! I'm tired, Dani of not having people, a place, family, a heritage! This is my chance to start my own line, my own tribe," Amara said desperately, tears welling in her eyes. "Amara, I'm worried that they will eat you alive and spit you out as something twisted and evil," Dani said holding the trembling woman's arms. "Be my friend, Dani. Don't judge me, be my conscience, please but trust that I am wise beyond my years and it is time for allegiances. Hellfire members in the X-Men and now X-Men in their Inner Circle. I will make myself a vanguard, a stalwart but even I know I cannot do it alone. Stand with me as my friend, Dani." Dani wavered, the raw emotional distraught of her friend needed grounding. "Ok, Amara, we'll play your hand for now. I am with you. We X-Men will back you up." She still wasn't any closer to answering her suspicion that Amara had planned all of this. There were times when raw telepathy would've answered so many questions. If she could just pluck a yes or no from her friend's mind, but she couldn't. Instead she was relegated to simply watching Amara Aquilla, the new Red Queen of the Inner Circle and hoping that when the time came to tell her no to a decision, she was still listening to her counsel. "Thank you, Danielle. Thank you."  
  
Dani awoke with a start and she was in a luxurious parlor full of Roman busts and single thrown that Selene languished on. "Child," Selene grinned, clad in a silk black shrift, watching Dani the way a cat watched prey. "I take it you cast this mental spell for a reason? Not to kill me or I'd be dead. If you could kill me," Dani said calmly, clad in a white dress like a servant. "If you're looking for fear, you won't get it. Say your bit or let me go." Selene tilted her head in curiosity. "Not frightened. My have you grown, child! But I assume it has to do with the time you spent in Asgaard, hmmm? Yes, the scent of your work as a Valkyrie sits squarely on your shoulders like a cloak, for those of us who can see such things. Not even Xavier has an idea of exactly how long you spent there, does he?" "No," Dani admitted honestly, it had been one of her fears at being in his presence again, the look he'd given her. "He still conceives of me as a mortal." "And in all the ways that concern you I'm sure you think you are. But you aren't, you understand?" "I do. My sister Valkyries made that clear. Anyway, you know my dirty little secret and I guess the fact that I'm here is not about me but Amara?" "Yes, our Red Queen. I say our because she won't break her allegiance to the X-Men, in fact she'll surely now strengthen it. She needs soldiers, fodder." "I figured as much. It would be interesting if you or Shaw admitted that you were using to Channel to kill the other and she outfoxed you both. She turned you both to her advantage," Dani said smugly, thought about in the middle of their power games, Amara had pulled off quite the feat. "She's her mother's daughter," Selene smiled coyly. Dani didn't think she'd be so blunt with that possibility. "I take it that's a question you intend to play as a card one day?" "Perhaps. Anyway, I come to you while asleep, brought you to the astral plane to remind you to stand by her, to temper her fiery nature with your shrewdness; the maturity born of age." "Worried for her or about her?" "Both and neither. She was born and bred for this kind of game but she's entered it too rashly, too viciously. She's desperate for the status she possessed in Nova Roma, her new enemies will use that against her." "New enemies?" "Count, child, Black, White, Red and Grey. You've seen glimpses of some of the pieces on the Hellfire Inner Circle Board. But not all. Some positions are filled, others have thousands within their ranks. Learn chess. It's a fabulous game. Caesar enjoyed it." "You played with Caesar?" "Child, I taught it to him. You count your age by number, I by empires gone and buried that don't even have names on your wizened people's lips. Make sure that Amara stands strong as the Red Queen but temper her, this game isn't even in the opening salvos of the war it's to become. Xavier has no idea what the Inner Circle is truly after," Selene chuckled. "And you're telling me this because....?' "I care." "About?" "A great many things seen and unseen. But Xavier also underestimates you, the Valkyrie part of you. Because he can't for all of his self-proclaimed psi powers see you clearly, see it clearly, he doesn't understand what it will see in a person, in a room," Selene whispered and then Dani's eyes opened and she was back in her room in the hotel in Tokyo.  
  
Hellfire Club Inner Circle Coronation:  
  
"Tell me why we're dressed like this again?" JP sighed as the X-Men entered the formal ballroom of the Hellfire Club, he was referring to the waistcoats and ruffled shirts that all the male X-Men were wearing. Amara was decked out in her bustier and cloak queen ensemble while Dani was in a Victorian white dress that billowed to make her look like an oval. But around her throat was a red choker. Same on the men, though all of their outfits were black velvet. It seemed that the chokers denoted allegiance to those who weren't pieces. Which Warren had explained was even lower than it sounded. They were simply the Red Queen's squires at this point. Danielle had to admit that the sumptuous banquet and dozens of people in the room in similar attire was truly amazing. She almost gasped out loud as a blonde haired woman passed by her with her much younger husband. She had one of her cd's! She was one of the most famous women in the world and she was a member of the Inner Circle! "Blessed Madonna! Holy shit!" Paulie muttered, gaping with Dani. "She's only a Rook," Warren informed them. "And you?" Bobby asked knowing that Warren's father had passed on his membership to his son. Warren's wings out and resplendent but in no way being gawked at by the gathering, shrugged. "I could push to be an Inner Circle member but I'm---- reticent. For obvious reasons." Sebastian Shaw lifted his goblet and the room hushed. "Come forth." The Red Queen walked to the center of the room confidently. "Kneel," he commanded. Amara looked him square in the eye and spoke calmly. "I will fulfill anything my liege asks of me. But a Queen worth the title, never kneels." There was an almost physical silence in the ballroom and Dani felt Warren trying to soothe her through their rapport. She thought that Amara had made a tremendous mistake but slowly hands went up, goblets raised. They were acknowledging the Red Queen's strength. "Very good, Lady Amara, you'll lead your pieces well when your King isn't present," Shaw smiled. "And strike when my King orders or to protect my pieces interest and the good of the Inner Circle," she replied. And then with great flourish opened her cloak and kneeled before Shaw. "Why didn't she do it the first time he ordered her to?" Bobby asked in a whisper. "Submission is choice but not command to a Queen worth following, Warren answered. "Of course," Bobby said as if it were the most natural answer in the world. Shaw brought the goblet down to his lips, sipped it then handed it to Amara. "Welcome to the Inner Circle, Lady Amara, you are it's new Red Queen. Drink of us." "I don't want to know what's in that cup, do I?" Dani muttered. "No, you don't," Warren answered. Dani closed her eyes, wondering what kind of unholy covenant her friend was making and how much of this world Warren knew. It was then she felt a whisper, almost a scent and she glanced up. Her psi powers dampened by the baffles in the room but there were some that couldn't be hidden. Sure enough, Emma Frost, the White Queen was at the farthest end of the ballroom, amidst a crowded of people in gleaming white clothing. Pieces and their "servants" but she had felt him. Hiding and then slipping away, his presence mandatory she was sure. And Dani understood why there were so many people and why for that one instance Shaw had drawn everyone's attention to the center of the room, other pieces wore masks s if at a costume ball. None of the others noticed it, couldn't have but she'd had Selene's dream chat about her being a Valkyrie to enhance her senses. Senses psi baffles could do nothing too. A Valkyrie could spot power. Charles Francis Xavier, the White King slipped away believing one of his most closely guarded secrets kept.  
  
"You must be very proud of your friend," Carlos Allegra said to Warren, the coronation officially having segued into a party of mingling and networking. "I'm not sure if proud is the right word. I wanted to thank you though for helping to rescue us from Channel's clutches. Speaking of which, what happened to him?" Warren asked, slowly sipping his champagne and watching the calm eyes of the Black Bishop. "I'm afraid, Warren that I serve the Black King and Queen, I do not question them," he said evasively. "He's a serial killer. Quite a few people died at his hands just to attack Shaw. I can't leave here without knowing that he's been dealt with. Perhaps you should convey that to your King and Queen. My commitment to seeing this through." "I will do just that," the Black Bishop nodded then walked away.  
  
"Is this what you've always wanted, Amara?" Sebastian Shaw asked her as they danced a waltz in the midst of dozen of other couples.  
"I was tricked by Selene into believing I was born into royalty. When her spell wore off I realized I had become accustomed to the illusion. To the gifts of strength of character," Amara answered with a shy smile.  
"As the leader of the Inner Circle I must make sure that the other members do not fight without just cause. Let me make myself clear, my dear Red Queen, I know of your history with our Black Queen. These are not times to cripple our power with old vengeances. As your first act of fealty to me, I ask you to renounce the vendetta you have for the Black Queen," he said in a low tone, holding her tightly against his body in spite of the higher temperature her body was giving off. He watched as she fought an inner battle, her eyes glaring at him for long moments then going calm again. She held his stare until she realized that this would one of her true tests, acknowledging this man as her superior.  
Amara nodded. "She is as safe as my teammates, as any of my allies."  
Shaw's eyes went from deadly to twinkling in an instant. "Excellent! When the moment comes for you to unsheathe that vendetta, I will tell you."  
For a moment she was confused then she saw his meaning in his smile and smiled broadly herself. He wasn't protecting the witch as much as he was aligning pieces against her one day. "Yes, my King." She laid her head onto his shoulder and allowed her glance to take in all of the guests who were dancing and milling about, every few seconds their eyes flickering to her, to the new Red Queen in the arms of the Black King. She heard a soft laughter from the other side of the room and saw Selene staring at her boldly. The ebony dressed woman, half in shadows raised a flute of champagne in toast to Amara who beamed back until Shaw's dance lead turned her away.  
  
The Xavier Institute:  
  
"Did you enjoy the coronation of your new Red Queen?" Charles Xavier asked Emma Frost as she strolled into the garden, the night sky was full of the moon and several clouds casting shadows on them both.  
Emma smiled and stood closer to Charles, she in a simple white dress and him in a white tuxedo. "The question is did you enjoy it?"  
"We've had glimpses of the future, we knew that we somewhat certainty, Amara would one day join the Hellfire Club," he said neutrally.  
"And yet it still unnerves you?" she chuckled and trailed her finger along his chin. "Don't worry, Charles, your shields are as formidable as ever. It's simply my feminine instinct that sees you so clearly."  
Charles kept his face to the night sky, ignoring her touch though intrigued by her line of questioning. Out of so many confidants, she had become if not valued....then preferred for some of his darker thoughts. "We such little time. We seek to change a world with but a handful of mutants. I often doubt my own machinations. And then sometimes I concerned that in the writing of this history, no one will understand the choices I made. The alliances."  
"The greater good and all of that?" Emma chuckled. "I played the darker side of this chess game for years to cull the best mutants, to guide them and they still end up dead. Even Magneto for all of his bluster created more in Genosha than we ever have."  
"Cassandra, another facet of me. She destroyed that. Amazing how we tend to be the weapons to destroy our own dreams, eh? The Sanctuary team, they have so many mysteries wrapped within enigmas to undo."  
"I advised against creating such a team. They are a wildcard. We won't even touch on how Storm's team should be dealt with."  
"I should mentally coerce them to stay?" he shook his head ruefully, this was an old argument with them.  
"You say it would be but I suspect that someone like Cyclops or say Jean or even Wolverine are tied tighter to your mind than you want any of us to know."  
"Emma, please, speak your mind. Don't concern yourself with insulting everything I stand for and against," he snapped sarcastically.  
"I'm sorry....my White King," she whispered then walked away, laughing to herself.  
  
"I could feel your upset in my sleep, Warren, you're going to learn how to tone it down or I'm going to knock you out every night," Dani chuckled as she walked into the living room. He sat on the edge of an end table watching the plasma screen tv on the wall.  
"Aliens tried to invade Madripoor, Storm's team rebuffed them. The island is in shambles," he sipped a tumbler of scotch then offered it to her. She shook her head. "We should go help."  
"Why is that?" he was feeling a swirl of dark emotions from him, anger, despair, terror.  
"It will be a good cover. My company helping them, backing up the other X-Men team with help."  
"Lie to someone who hasn't got a line into your head. What is this really about?"  
"The Marauders. They're raiding Lowtown. The New Mutants missed them during the Mutant Massacre, they destroyed my wings. I owe Apocalypse more than a man ever should. In order to get them back he twisted me. I'll start with his cloned monsters. I can't allow them to do what they did to me to others," he downed the last of the scotch as Dani came over to him and gently touched his wings. They felt like silk under her fingertips, so much like her beloved Brightwind's wings.  
Warren turned to her and the rapport was so intense for a moment that her vision blurred and she saw his pink skin shimmer blue, his feathers felt like hard metal and then he became human again. He moved her waist length hair away from her face and brought her close enough so that she could feel his breath on her cheek.  
"Is the attraction because of the rapport?" he whispered.  
She shrugged. "It must intensify it."  
"But it's real?" he opened up his lips and touched hers. For moment they simply touched lips, not moving further, enjoying the sensation of the psychic rapport tingling through their flesh.  
"You're drunk and going through a lot," she shook her head and pulled away. "I agree with stopping the Marauders and I'll back you up with the others in the morning but we're not going to kill them, Warren."  
  
Madripoor, High Town:  
  
Dani stood in the shower, enjoying the fact that six different nozzles were trained on her. She had to admit that traveling with the X-Men, particularly Warren was like being a celebrity. They'd gone from Tokyo on his private jet to Madripoor in a couple of hours, there being no checking at customs or anything. In fact, Dani couldn't remember if anyone had even questioned them. Some of it was mutant hysteria, it was clear who they were, traveling with Warren, one of the most public mutants on the planet. But also it was the clout that his wealth bought. It was almost decadent. A triplex penthouse suite, again at Madripoor's premiere hotel ready to accommodate eight, each with a separate bedroom and full bath as soon as they'd arrived. And after this quick mopping up of the Marauders they would be in Australia, a place more to her liking. She could bring Brightwind from Asgard and ride him on the ground or the skies.  
Yes, she enjoyed the luxuries but there were certain things she did miss deeply. Thoughts of Brightwind though brought up worries about her enemies there in Asgard. As a Valkyrie she'd made a few, particularly one who she knew was hunting for her now.  
Sarat.  
She should've explained all of this to the others, trusted them but there hadn't been time and she wasn't sure that Sarat would come for her as he'd sworn. He was a mercurial man. There had been many levels to their relationship in all the time she'd spent in Asgard. But explaining her relationship to Sarat would involve her explaining exactly how long she had been in that dimension, aging in ways they couldn't see. She wasn't ready for that conversation.  
"Why so worried?" Warren said, his face suddenly appearing on the other side of the glass enclosure.  
"I worry, it's what I do," Dani shrugged. The fact that she was nude didn't bother her, she felt so comfortable with Warren. And it had only been a couple of weeks with the rapport. What would happen after a year?  
"Want some company?" he asked and Dani smoothed back her hair to answer. He knew that she was full of conflict about their relationship, about what level to take it to or not. It said a lot about his character and restraint that he asked her verbally, able to read her emotions clearer and clearer the more time they spent together. She did want him. She did. That they both knew. When and how.......? That was the only question.  
"Yes," she whispered. She would risk it. She would risk her heart again even though she'd sworn several times in Asgard that she never would again.  
He stepped into the enclosure, already nude but she hadn't seen that because of the condensation on the glass and the steam. He touched her hair first, his wings suddenly making the shower smaller and smaller as he fit them inside. Then they wrapped around them both , gentle feathers along her back and legs bringing her closer.  
"Thank you for being there for me when Channel had me prisoner. It was really great to know I wasn't alone," he smiled with perfect teeth and crystal blue eyes, hair becoming wet from one of the water streams.  
"Would you be here if we didn't have a rapport?" she asked and purposefully closed off their connection. She wanted to know from him, from his lips not his mind. It was amazing how people craved such an intimacy and she was content to dim it to truly listen to this man.  
"When you came into the mansion, I was watching you and thinking how beautiful you were, how much you'd changed since you'd been away. How confident you always seem as well as simply being yourself without apology. That's very attractive, Danielle. Intoxicating. And to know it's standing with me, as my comrade makes you even sexier," he said honestly. They stepped closer and Dani let him kiss her, a slow kiss of just getting closer. Then it became more intense as she allowed the connection to open up with their minds. It became deeper, more intense, freer. Suddenly all the restrictions and restraint was lost to the psi rapport. Dani felt as if she were flying, as if she had wings and conversely she could feel him feeling his own touch on her body, what it was doing to her. It was beyond intoxicating, beyond even what they'd both experienced of telepathy, it was a symbiosis of consciousness. What normal people tried to achieve with words, with physical actions was manifested in the flesh between them.  
Bracing his wings against the glass walls, he lifted them both, cradling her in his arms, using the crowded space to increase their intimacy, to bring her closer to him. She reached down, her figures touching his rippled muscles, his mind explaining in a second that it was part of his mutation---no body fat. Her instantly knew how sensitive her throat was, how someone else had kissed her there once, someone in shadows, someone she both loved and was afraid of. With a batting away, the way one would knock aside pillows on a bed, Dani knocked aside her past and focused on Warren, on her future on consummating the mental to physical, on unification.  
"I really do hate to break this up but we have a meeting downstairs. Charles and Emma are here," Amara said with a dry chuckle tapping on the glass. Dani shrieked and Warren backpedaled, slipping on the tiles and landing solidly on his rear.  
"AMARA!" Dani roared red-faced, embarrassed, flustered and more embarrassingly still tingling and dazed from the erotic rapport.  
"I came in here as the only other female member to tell you to hurry up with your shower, Danielle. How did I know you'd be in here---jockeying for position," Amara grinned then turned on her heel and walked out, her leather red X-Men/Hellfire Uniform looking like a blood stain seeping through the steamy mist.  
Dani looked down and Warren was laughing.  
"It's not funny, Warren, you have to command respect on this team. And as your back-up so do I! This was one of the reasons why I was reluctant to get involved!" she said and suddenly felt the giggle rumbling through her too. It really was hilarious and Amara being so blasé about it was indicative of how silly it was to pretend it wouldn't happen.  
Warren stood up carefully, he didn't want to explain his wings and shatter the glass encasement. "It could have been worse, Emma or the Professor could have come a knocking in our heads and been in for quite a treat."  
"Y-yes, that would've been worse," Dani said, suddenly feeling self- conscious standing in a shower naked with Warren.  
"After this mission we'll have plenty of time to explore our rapport. We go right to Sanctuary from here, no detours," Warren kissed her and this time she let herself feel safe with him.  
"The rapport makes it so easy to mistake it and an attraction for love, we have to be careful," Dani smiled, water dribbling between her face and his chest.  
"Let's not be careful, let's be reckless!" Warren laughed. "Let's just call it Deep Like with Potential."  
"I like that!" Dani exclaimed and they stepped out of the shower. "Now go downstairs, I'm not exactly ready to go down to them swinging hands, making goo goo eyes."  
"Yes, ma'am!" Warren mock saluted then hurried out of the shower, grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist. Even though the door shut behind her, they were still connected with their minds----almost akin to kissing and they did so the entire time it took them to get dressed.  
  
Emma Frost and Charles Xavier stood in astral form in the middle of the living, the X-Men all assembled, along with Carlos Allegra.  
"I want to compliment you all on your first mission and preventing the death of Sebastian Shaw from the entity/mutant Channel," Prof. Xavier said calmly.  
"The Hellfire Club is holding him in custody, we haven't told the IRC yet that we didn't officially get our man," Northstar explained. "It seems that we're here to try and catch another pack of mass murderers to make up for that snafu."  
"I've spoken with Shaw and we've designed a way to keep Channel prisoner for sometime. Something that the IRC wouldn't be capable of yet in its infancy, as it is now."  
"Professor, we should at least give them a chance. Channel killed seven people-----which we know of! What about the justice there? Or do we only look out for mutants now?" Dani sneered.  
"Danielle, there will be certain extreme times when we have to mitigate laws ourselves, this is one of them. Channel, like the Shadow King is an entity, not a corporeal being. It seems that Camus is his brother and therefore a symbiotic "grounding", to this reality, as well as a mental slave to him, if you will. Camus has agreed to work with X-Corp and Shaw Industries in exchange he will no longer be a slave to his brother," Xavier calmly explained.  
"And Channel? Last we saw he was a green globe," Paulie pointed out. "What happens to him now that Camus isn't his to manipulate anymore?"  
"I understand that Selene is using him as a nite light," Emma said impassively and the room went silent.  
"She is joking, right? Dani asked and Xavier had nothing but a slow smile. "We asked and encouraged Selene to turn her entrapment of Channel over to us but she insisted she was better equipped to contain him within her spell. I must take my leave now, there are other matters that need my attention. Warren, all of you, you are doing excellent work, I'm especially proud of you, Bobby for making sure there was no loss of life when Yashida Tower was nearly destroyed. You have all proven my trust in you to be X-Men was in no way remiss. Thank you," Xavier said calmly then turned to Carlos. "It is good to see you have finally aligned yourself with the X-Men. My invitation to join has been open to you for many years." Carlos nodded politely. "It is good to see you again, Charles. And yes, I am to be Lady Amara's personal guard and as she is a member of the X-Men then I humbly ask to accompany them. However, let the distinction be understood, that I have my reasons now and in the past for not accepting your offer to be an X-Man. I will stand with this group and give my life if necessary but only out of loyalty and service to Lady Amara." Charles visibly stiffened. "There are great many things I could teach you." "No, Charles, there are not. I am someone for whom your tutelage is both unnecessary and too late for," Carlos said, with an air of slight sadness. "Then hopefully you will find our camaraderie and friendship helpful to you," Charles said. "If you will all excuse me, I must take my leave, matters call for my attention. Good luck, my X-Men, Carlos." With that his astral self vanished. Emma stood patiently smiling, her hair in a bun, glasses tilted on the end of her nose as she floated several feet above the ground in her astral body so that she could look down on them all. "However from what we've been able to glean from your report, there were some areas that could've been dealt with much more efficiently..............," and with that pronouncement she flipped open a pad and began her criticisms.  
  
San Madre, South America  
  
Sanctuary Base, Australia  
  
(INSERT WRITTEN SECTION w/ Kitty, Peter, Alex and Nemesis)  
  
"Hello," a bright red digitized head said as IT appeared next to Alex.  
"What the heck is that?" Kitty asked.  
"IT," Alex answered calmly.  
"Yes, it," Peter smiled and pointed. "Can't you see it? Or is this some sort of telepathic thing?"  
"No, I can see IT. Of course I can see IT, I designed IT," Alex said.  
"Then what do you call it?" Peter asked.  
"IT," Kitty replied.  
"Yes, that's what I mean. It. The head."  
"IT," IT said in a pleasant, slightly British accented tone with a smile.  
"Aha, it doesn't have a name yet," Peter nodded knowing.  
"Dear God....," Alex groaned.  
"If you'll pardon me, Mr. Rasputin, I appeared to alert Alex to the presence of the X-Men Sanctuary team on an Asian television station," IT said, his head expanding into a holographic viewer screen.  
"Tokyo? Saw that, IT," Alex said glancing at the screen. This was new, it was a vicious battle between the squad that had gone to Tokyo and the Marauders.  
"The Marauders," Kitty said with gritted teeth. "That's not Tokyo either. Where is it?"  
"It's right there," Peter offered helpfully tapping her and pointing at the floating head.  
"They are in Madripoor. The section known as High Town," IT reported.  
"Who are these Marauders?" Peter asked.  
"A team of mutant assassins that killed hundreds of Morlocks some time back. They also gravely wounded, Kitty, Angel, Nightcrawler and your father, I believe," Alex answered.  
"Then we have to help!" Peter exclaimed. "They can't be allowed to kill our teammates or more mutants."  
"You're right, Peter but we're a good ten hours away. They're in the thick of battle, we'd never get there in time," Kitty said, then noticed she'd been digging her fingernails into her palms to the point of nearly drawing blood. She could see Harpoon hurls the energy javelins that had so seriously injured her before. She wanted him, wanted to hurt him for the torture of thinking she was going to die for months after his attack on her. And she'd had friends amongst the Morlocks, friends that had been killed or died as a result of the Marauder's attack.  
"Well, I am essentially the manager here. I managed to arrange some transportation," Alex said with a smug grin and nodded up at an outcropping that overlooked the town like a natural perch. Atop it sat Gateway, bola already in hand spinning to open a direct gateway to Madripoor. "He, Xavier and I came to an understanding. Quite the nice chap actually. Amazing gin rummy player."  
Kitty looked up at Gateway, she didn't have to go. If she did, she was back into the game. The one she'd left abruptly because it had claimed so many of her friends and loved ones, including Peter's father. Could she endanger him too? Could she join another incarnation of the X-Men and watch them die too? Like a recovering alcoholic, could she only have one "drink"?  
  
Madripoor, High Town  
  
Scattered throughout the rubble of High Town Madripoor the X-Men found that the Marauders had in no way tired of savagery. Each blow was met with the deadliest of responses and still the battle was inconclusive. Both groups were worn out by the melee and it still wasn't clear who the victor would be. Paulie was proud of himself. He hadn't screamed or cried out once and Blockbuster was smashing yet another massive fist into his body, sending him through a storefront. In came the big monster, bald and thick browed, his fingers flexing as he made another fist to strike Paulie with. They'd been trading punches for a few minutes now, unfortunately Paulie didn't have the muscle mass to back up his invulnerability. He could take it but he couldn't dish it out. So all he had was his wits and next to someone like Blockbuster, only a miniscule amount of comparable super strength. Mainly since his body wouldn't break or muscles snap, he could lift a car if he got the right leverage and his strength did seem to be a dozen times more than a man his size would normal be. Xavier had theorized that psychologically Paulie had developed his invulnerability from anxiety and fear about being hurt so that he was to some unconscious degree limiting a large increase in strength as well. Or he could simply be a mutant who would always lack super strength. Not every power set was complimentary. "Ok, you freak, I'm gonna have to take you down hard!" Paulie snapped, steadying his body for his next move. He would use leverage not strength to do this right the first time. Paulie stood up and took the next blows, then grabbed Blockbuster's wrists, yanked hard until the massive Marauder was tumbling head first down a flight of stairs. Paulie snatched up a metal rod and leaped down the stairs, standing on Piledriver's back, then with all of his might, drove the pipe into the man's spine. Though the skin didn't break, Piledriver howled in agony and swatted Paulie through several walls. "You will die slowly for that!" Piledriver roared, thrashing his way through the walls until he came upon Paulie who was laying curled up on the floor. "Guess what?" Paulie coughed. "What?!" Piledriver demanded. "Your inner probably ain't as tough as your outer!" Paulie screamed and drove the pipe into the mutant's open mouth, up through the roof of his mouth and into his brain, killing him instantly. Piledriver fell back, dumfounded and dead in an instant. "Surprised ain't you, motherfucker! Huh?! HUH? Yeah, thought I was gonna go all Cyclops on your beefy ass and play fair, right? Nope, I read. Not only are you guys the official mad dogs of the mutant world, you're also a bunch of clones. And I'm pro- choice, baby! You ain't nothing but something that ain't even covered by the goddamn Constitution!" Paulie spit on him, his own blood from the inside of his mouth, coming it, the inspiration for his final blow. "That's the problem with these X jokers, you gotta leave a few bodies around every once in awhile so people know not to fuck with you. Hey, maybe 'Constitution'? That's a good code name." He gave it a moment of thought then shook his head as he hurried back outside. Nah, it sounded like he had the ability to not vomit.  
  
Arclight slammed her fists on the ground sending a violent shock wave that caused windows to blow apart, cars to tumble, and Psyche, Carlos and Iceman to fall to the ground. "Looks like I get to burn some X-Men too! Could this gig be any better?" Arclight chuckled. "Have a care, cow, those are my teammates!" Northstar said, slamming into Arclight from behind, then snapping back into the air, slamming into her again, then repeating several times, until she had been smashed through the pavement. Psyche, on her knees, didn't hesitate as she reached into Arclight's mind and brutally ripped out her worst fear for all to see. The hazy image seemed to be the incubation tanks these clones were held in and then it was opened and the face of Sinister appeared. Arclight crouched screaming in dread at the thought of being awakened once again from what she hoped would be death to fight again for a master she couldn't get away from. "Nicely done," Allegra complimented as Iceman froze Arclight from head to toe. "We try to get the job done," Psyche shrugged as they got to their feet. "Watch out for that arrogance, red skin," Scalphunter said from the other end of the street opening fire with a heavy artillery gun of his own creation. "Rabbit!" Psyche shouted as Allegra pulled her behind a car and Northstar scooped up Iceman who had thrown up a hasty ice shield to cover their dispersal. It had been ripped to shreds by the bullets. "My hero! Whatever would I do without you?" Iceman cooed mockingly. "End up the way of your pathetic shield attempt," Northstar said circling back. Scalphunter had continued to fire until the ice encasing Arclight was weakened enough for her to rip it apart angrily. "Bitch! I will kill you for that!" Arclight screamed charging towards Psyche. Psyche easily ducked under Arclight's first blow and came up with a mean upper cut that had barely any effect upon the woman. "Allow me," Allegra stand, his hands pressing on Psyche's body for a brief moment so that he could get airborne enough to kick Arclight back. "Not good enough, spic!" Arclight said, grabbing Allegra's foot before he had landed and swatting him at Psyche like a club. Psyche leaped over Allegra, used Arclight's shoulders as balance to flip over, grabbing the woman's hair at the last second. Before her feet were even on the ground she had Arclight bending backwards and then on her back being flipped into a car before the woman was quite sure what had happened. "Excellent," Allegra said, having fallen to the ground. He shoved Psyche to the side as Arclight charged like a mad bull between them and they both slammed their elbows down onto her neck. Psyche's hand came around with her psi bow and arrow ready, a quick flick and the arrow was lodged in Arclight's back, the woman writhing in pain. "Allow me for her slurring of us both," Allegra said. "By all means," Psyche laughed. Allegra grabbed the back of Arclight's neck and closed his eyes. A moment later she had stopped fighting the still embedded and glow psi arrow and was unconscious.  
"You want to explain how you did that?" Psyche asked him.  
"When we have more time, I promise."  
  
Iceman kept up the return volley of ice spears at Scalphunter, who was running through a shopping center, firing indiscriminately over his should at the sliding Iceman and the airborne Northstar. The speedster concerned himself with yanking and dropping to safety people who were in the line of fire from the Marauder's wild shots.  
"We have to end this, Iceman," Northstar said to his teammate.  
"Ok, switch!" Iceman said and Northstar dove down in pursuit of Scalphunter on foot as Iceman's slide rose up, ice walls freezing up behind him to protect the bystanders.  
Northstar zipped through people, cursing the fact that it seemed to be a popular mall and that they had to watch out from hitting the people but that Scalphunter could use them as targets.  
Northstar increased his speed dramatically then stopped short suddenly, the air pressure lashing through the crowd and slamming them all to the ground, including Scalphunter. Ice blocks appeared on the villains arms and instant later but before they could secure him properly the sky light above shattered and Archangel and Harpoon came tumbled through, locked in a vicious fist fight.  
"The glass, Northstar!" Iceman shouted.  
"Yes, yes, I see it and I'm dealing with it, Drake. Don't get your shorts in a bunch," Northstar sighed and began soaring back and forth in a circular formation around the ground floor until an updraft as created. His only concern was that his teammate might find it disconcerting.  
  
Sabine watched them closely, the X-Men engaging the Marauders and she held her breath because other than Meridian, herself, none of them knew which X- Man was their first target. Her employer was a shrewd, one to not let all of her secrets out at once. Now? She asked her mistress mentally. Not yet, soon.  
  
"This madness ends now, you hear me, butcher! You killed children, you even destroyed my wings before but I won't allow it again!" Archangel roared as he smashed through the mall skylight with Harpoon. He'd spotted the man covering his teammates from the room and dive-bombed into him. Harpoon though surprised was far from stunned as he gave Archangel blow for blow , not a care to his fate as he fell through the air.  
Suddenly Northstar's updraft stilled them both in mid-air for an instant and then shot them back up through the roof. Archangel used to the surprise of up air currents, twisted his wings so that they took full advantage of the push and yanked Harpoon almost a thousand feet into the air.  
"You may be tough, Harpoon but I've learned not to hesitate," Archangel said to the Inuit man as he spun around and threw Harpoon towards the ground. Harpoons screams could be heard for almost two blocks and then they ended as he crashed like a small meteor into a storefront.  
  
"Fool! You would think that you would tire of this!" Magma shouted at Riptide as he spun his body like a blur, razor sharp resin stars firing at her. "I enjoy a good kill, woman!" He said advancing towards her slowly as she kept blasting in front of herself, destroying the stars. "I am not an easy kill, little man! I am both an X-Man and a Lord Cardinal and I tire of this sullying of my hands with a monster low enough to both slaughter innocents and then rape a war torn country of the few coins it has left!" "Eh, it's a living, what can I say?" he pressed closer to her, forcing her to generate even greater body temperatures to destroy the resin stars. Suddenly he was close enough to grab her throat, his hands seemingly unfazed by the heat radiating from her. "Start with: Our Father who art in Heaven?" Magma suggested grinning evilly and two columns of molten earth shot out of the soil, did a sharp ninety degree turn and compacted Riptide between them.  
  
Now, Meridian ordered. Sabine rejoiced and ran from the lobby of the bank the Marauders had been robbing and where she'd been standing off to the side in a trench coat towards the X-Men. The trench coat was flung away revealing the silk bodysuit with leather straps across the chest to hold the back sheaths. Pulling her swords from the sheaths, arms and blades blurring as she streaked at Paulie who was coming out of a store he and Piledriver had crashed into. "Stupid idiot," he said, her blades the least of what he was afraid of from this group. He arrogantly reached out to catch the blades in mid-flight only to have Sabine swipe her blades away from him at what would've been the moment of contact and kick her leg into his, swiping him to the ground. Before he could move, she dug her sword into the ground below, pulled up an electrical cable and flicked it at him, the other sword, cut the causing open. The ensuing shock caused Paulie to shriek before he could weakly roll away from the live wire. Sabine was still moving, charging towards the other X-Men at the end of the street. "I've got her!" Psyche yelled, manifesting and firing psi arrows with her bow shaft but Sabine leapt suddenly, almost twenty feet directly up then dropped to the ground in a tumble. She came up completely having hopped over the arrows and slashed at her adversary. Psyche backpedaled, finally forced to use her bow shaft to block one of the blades as it slammed at her. Sabine smiled as the katana split open and metal needles flew out. "Aiiiiiieeeeeee!" Psyche screamed as the needles dug deeply into her forearms that she'd brought up to protect her face. Allegra slammed into Sabine from behind, having moved faster and quieter than anyone would've expected. Sabine rolled with the blow and came back up in a crouching stance, blades extended. Carlos Allegra? He's with them now? Meridian whispered in genuine surprise. Sabine, you're no match for him. They probably don't know the full extent of his abilities. He won't allow you to kill him but he will restrain himself. Use that advantage. Sabine grunted an acknowledgement then thrust herself at Allegra who used the flats of his hands to block the slashes, his accuracy remarkably as fast as her hyper kinetic attacks until Sabine somersaulted over his head landing her swords pointing forward. He turned to her back and Sabine clicked two buttons on her sword hilts, the blades collapsed from facing forward and shot out of the hilts in the opposite direction. He expertly twisted but was still impaled by one blade in the mid-section and grazed in the leg by the other. Sabine retracted the blades and somersaulted over him again, tossing her blades up in the air as she slammed her leg into his kidney and then several sharp nerve pinches into his back. She spun around, caught the dropping blades, flicked a switch and electrical arcs burst from the blades lifting him agonizingly off of the ground. Very good, Sabine, keep him off balance! He's worth the electrical charge and not that idiot Provenzano! Meridian laughed then warned calmly. Behind you. Sabine twisted as Archangel swooped down, hands clasped in a fist and slammed into her side, his original intent having been more impactful but he'd stopped the attack on Carlos Allegra who was stumbling away, bleeding profusely from his side. Psyche was also crouched down, pulling what looked like thin knives from her forearms. Their psi rapport was leaking her distress and he purposefully focused calming thoughts at her. He wouldn't let this go any further. "We've taken out nearly all of your team, give it up, lady," Archangel said, having flown back a few feet to avoid the length of her blades. Sabine grinned as she turned to the aloft Archangel, spinning her blades and the ground trembled as Magma burst up from a fissure, between them, covered in lava and tossed a clearly broken Riptide, questionably alive, at her feet. "The ass never had a chance," Magma spat in disgust. "He may twist the wind but I am one with the earth." "Careful, she's a tough one!" Paulie yelled as the three X-Men circled Sabine. Have a care, Sabine. They are going to be much more vicious having dealt with the other Marauders and you've yet to acquire the target. Yes, mistress. Sabine leaped up into the air, almost forty feet then dropped down spinning and contorting wildly, her swords slashing the air violently in every which direction until her target was uncertain. She flicked another button on the hilt of her sword and three inches from the tip of the blade rocketed off and impaled itself into Magma's arm, the carbotanium not melting at the searing temperatures the X-Men's body was giving off. Magma shrieked in pain and shock and fired a blast of flame at Sabine who was already back flipping away from it. Magma reverted to her human form, the poison secreted from the opening blade tip. Archangel went to help Amara, who waved him away. "I can use the earth to help me!" with that the earth enveloped her body, a flare of flames and lava erupting from where she lay, expunging the poison and the blade tip. The earthen cocoon opened to reveal a healed but unconscious Amara. ."Form on me! Keep out of her reach!" Archangel yelled to Iceman and Northstar as they rushed over to aid the others in taking down the last Marauder. "We lost Scalphunter when you came through the roof!" Iceman yelled at Archangel. Sabine merely grinned and pirouetted into the air, defying gravity as if it were a choice and not a definite, landing in front of a startled Iceman. "She's moving at super speed, that's why you're all so useless!" Northstar realized, ascertaining that the single woman had caused so much damage to his teammates. He missiled towards her but she was already in elegant, eerily silent motion. Sabine turned and swiped at Iceman, cutting deeply into his iced up body, then she plunged the blade deep into his chest and pressed a button. Small pores opened within the blade delivering a potent acid explosion within him. "AHHHHHHHH!" Iceman screamed as Sabine turned to Northstar as the speedster snatched her up into the air. "Someone helped Bobby!" Northstar yelled into his comm link as he rapidly ascended higher and higher, the friction, air pressure change and lack of oxygen intended to knock the woman unconscious. Or kill her. At this point in the battle that had ravaged the financial district he wasn't sure if the X-men were eager to make discernment on what was too far with wanton murderers. Mistress? Sabine questioned. No, don't kill him. He has potential. More than even he knows. He won't kill you, Meridian promised. Achieve his desired results.. Northstar felt Sabine struggle for a few minutes and then finally lose consciousness, he casually arced back down towards Madripoor island, thousands of feet below them, the extreme shifts having no effect upon his body physiology which granted him superior protection to high speed. "Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Help me!" Bobby shrieked as his ice body began crumbling in on itself, the acid eating away his insides. Archangel looked desperately at Psyche. "What can we do?" Psyche shook her head, her arms still bleeding from the needles she'd pulled out. "Actually, I don't think we have to do anything. I'm not seeing the specter of death on him, he's not dying. He just thinks he is. Bobby, focus! In ice form you control your every molecule!" she shouted at him, reluctant to touch him as the acid was bubbling through the surface of his ice "skin". Carlos Allegra limped over, obviously badly wounded but still able to function. He grabbed Bobby's ice hand and closed his eyes, focusing. "Be calm, Robert. Steady your mind as the Professor taught you. Close your eyes. You are envisioning pain, there is no true pain. I feel no pain from you." Archangel looked warily at Carlos, he was still a Lord Cardinal of the Hellfire Club, he didn't trust him, no matter his pledge to protect Amara. Psyche spoke up, getting vague psionic impressions of what was occurring. "Relax, Warren, its some sort of shared empathic wave. He's focusing his psi self at Bobby's core, to get Bobby to stop articulating himself emotionally to a body that he relates to his other form. He's just ice now. By choice. By panicking, he's forgotten that." "I've dealt with her," Northstar said landing and tossing Sabine to the ground as he rushed to Bobby's side. "Do not die on me, Drake, there is still a plethora of embarrassing and humiliating situations I have to put you into." "I-I'm trying!" Bobby groaned. "Carlos is helping but it's hard to stop thinking of this as my body. To repair it. I'm not sure where to start. Carlos is weak too, in pain, don't let him do this too far," Iceman moaned, seeing the strain on Carlos' face, his eyes shut tightly as he focused his self into him to affirm his core self. Northstar grabbed Carlos' other hand and simply pictured in his mind Iceman as completely whole in a pristine ice form and then a picture of Bobby as human and healed. "That is what you look like, you fool!" Northstar said, immediately feeling part of the psi link. "Carlos, can only sympathize not heal you. It's why he's such a good Bishop and will never be a Lord Cardinal King." "Jean-Paul, are you still mad about Madrid?" Carlos teased, chuckling, even as blood came to his lips. "I know both of you. Better than you know yourselves. You both whimper and jest and capitulate to have identities. Well now it's time to, by force of will alone, live! When this is over, genuflecting will be payment enough. Now focus, Bobby, we can't send Carlos back to Spain in a body bag because you drained him too far. Though there would be an uproar of applause, it is rude," A deep white glow extended from Northstar to the link between Carlos and Bobby and both men seemed to draw strength from it. "O-ok," Bobby said and slowly the acid seemed to stop bubbling so rapidly and instead ice bandages appeared and then the acid was forced out of Iceman's body until there were crackling puddles on the ground. "Not bad, Jean-Paul, were you going to tell us about that healing light of yours?" Psyche asked sarcastically. "I've only been able to do this with my sister, top help her at times with her fractured identities, but I reasoned that Carlos's empathy could tap into my strength of will that they both obviously lack," Northstar said snidely breaking contact. Bobby and Carlos both gasped as if an oxygen line had been taken away and then Bobby was able to shift to a fully human form. Carlos merely dropped to his haunches, holding his wound, but not looking as ragged anymore. "We need to get that tended to," Archangel said helping Carlos to his feet. "And thanks, Carlos,. Between the Professor's nod and you unhesitantly helping us twice I'm willing to offer you a hand of at the very least amicability." "Why thank you, Mr. Worthington," Carlos rasped, "you'll find that our motives and morals are not as far apart as my associations may've originally brought you to believe." "Touching," Sabine sneered then leapt at the group of them. She kicked Bobby and Psyche to one side then hurled steel pins at Archangel, nicking his wings in several places. Archangel tried to flap his way airborne but a thick resin was spreading like fire over his wings secreted from the pins until they were completely encased in a dark gelatinous goo as firm, dense and heavy as amber. Never having been without the balance of his wings but still saddled with their considerable weight he tumbled backgrounds, taking Carlos down to the ground with him. "Enough!" Psyche said, standing up an energy staff in her bloodied hands. "This ends here and now!" "Allow me!" Northstar said, dashing into Sabine with half a dozen blows that seemed to be moving in slow motion as she back flipped away from them, throwing equally vicious jabs and punches at him. Northstar maintained a heightened speed, increasing it in increments to dodge her blows but at best they were both evenly matched, they were at a stalemate of blocking blows rather than truly landing them. To the others it looked like the ultimate martial arts exchange with no headway being made by either. "Danielle!" Carlos groaned and Psyche helped him to stand, using her shoulder to brace him. We can't defeat her because of the thread. Can you see the thread?" "Thread? What are you talking--------?" but the very mentioned of it suddenly seemed to make it visible. Or better yet, apparent, apparent to her. There was a thread, no wider than a piece of cloth thread that seemed to be in Sabine's back and extending up into the air. "I see it! So we cut it?" "She is literally on the strings of someone else. And if it's the Marauders she leads then I would suggest Mr. Sinister. I doubt that either you or I have the power to cut his string to his puppet, but we might be able to disrupt it," Carlos said weakly to her. "Ok, how?" Psyche mumbled, she preferred direct action and the range of Carlos' psi abilities seemed to not be amazingly powerful but incredibly keen. She wasn't sure if she trusted him more or less for them now being revealed. "Psionics is not my power base.merely an offshoot. But I can perceive on different planes. I can show you how to attack the thread itself if you'll link with me. It doesn't exist in this plane of reality," he whispered. The flurry of Northstar and Sabine's violent dance to Carlos' eyes an obvious standoff. "You're always so polite, Carlos, so cautious with your words. Say what it is or what you mean, man, we don't have a lot of time here!" Psyche barked. Carlos laughed, choking again then turned her face to his with his free hand. "For one so powerful and ripened with the Valkyrie essence, you are such a tempestuous one. Look at me, Danielle and see what I hold within my essence!" Psyche felt her mind being first poked at, almost cautiously, or rather politely. And that polite touching could only be the ever-courteous Allegra. Finally she felt his essence spreading over hers, touching her being without trying to pierce into her sense of Self, merely becoming like a drape over her mind. He leaned in and kissed her, long and deep and at first she was enraptured, amazed at the gentleness she sensed in him and then she realized it was an ulterior motive as his salty blood was forced down her throat by his tongue. Don't resist, Danielle, the Beast is strong but there shall be no harm, Carlos projected into her mind and Psyche hesitated wondering what he was talking about then she saw the Death image in his face, crawling up her flesh, seeping into her. Death was in his blood! But not like a biological disease, this Death was an Entity. So old that she got whispers of it in words, in names she knew were older than anything she could ever hope to speak. But she knew that it hungered. It hungered for light, for flesh, for breath, and when it saw all three in Psyche it instinctively grabbed at her. She screamed and tried to refuse him, to put up her psi shields but Carlos, weakened by a wound, held her in an iron grip, body and mind. Get out of me! You are one of Death's champions, Danielle, do not insult one of it's relatives, Carlos smiled and she felt him grip her in the comfort of his own essence as a barrier against the darkness, a shield from that which he gave her. He was allowing her to share in it but not be possessed by it, infected by it, as he was. Her first instinct had been to panic but now she understood that Carlos was both gleeful to share this secret and deeply concerned that she not be infected by it. She also caught the wisp of a secret of his, he had manipulated Amara into liking him, into wanting him as her second, as her bodyguard, but Danielle fascinated him. Something akin to infatuation, as if he had so many things he wanted to share with her, talk to her about that only she would understand. That they were akin to the other. Danielle shrieked again and tumbled to the ground, Carlos landing on top of her, their mouths still locked, clutching each other until he slipped unconscious. But she could feel that his mind was strong, glowing with power even and his body was healing, somehow the transfer had boosted his ability to heal rapidly. She could sense that the wound was almost completely healed. Similar to her rapport with Warren she could feel deeply into Carlos's mental state but unlike Warren, Carlos had experience in keeping his mind private, segmented. She could sense him, his presence, his healing but his thoughts were his own. There was something in the blood which had locked them into a rapport, some kind of animal----hadn't he called it a Beast? "Paulie, help her!" Archangel ordered, trying to crawl over to Dani. "It felt like she was drowning in something. Something in his mind!" He clawed his way across the ground trying to get closer to her, his wings like huge stone weights, not sure what Carlos had done to her though her could feel her calming through their rapport. "Dani? You ok? What happened?" Paulie asked as he lifted Carlos off of her and gently rolled him onto his back. "That did not look like a fight. In fact it looked like humping. Which if that's his super power, I will not be practicing with him in the Danger Room. Though if it's a new power of yours, I'm willing to be your test case when you need it." "It wasn't a fight. I'm fine. He's a psi but not like we understand, he was trying to show me something Help me see what he can see on Sabine," Psyche said, letting her teammate help her to her feet as she took a good look at Sabine and Northstar who looked like vague impressions striking at each other. But with a bit of focus, almost like holding Carlos's mental hand she could see them moving much slower, closer to human speed which explained how he'd been able to fight her. But the thread was a fully intact cord now, wrapped firmly around the hand of a woman, an astral figure that was a deep cerulean. "Who are you?" Psyche demanded of the woman. "Yes, you!" Meridian turned, mildly surprised at their battlefield improvisation but not afraid. I am the one who holds Sabine's conduit, Meridian answered as if it was simply the most obvious answer on the planet. "Who are you talking to, Moonstar? Don't go bonkers on me now!" Paulie asked nervously. "You're not Sinister!" Psyche yelled. Meridian considered her answer then psi spoke so only Psyche could hear her. As a noun, no, but as an adjective, I'd have to say, yes. "I take it you're seeing something I can't?" Paulie nodded. "Or that a battlefield hump drives you crazy?" "Yes, Paulie, a woman. She's all blue and she has Sabine on a leash. I don't think we're dealing with Sinister at all." Sabine, if you're done exercising, you may leave with our prize now, Meridian said calmly. First, Iceman, he presents the most threat should he be accidentally harmed to my long term plans. Yes, mistress. Sabine tripled her speed, easily knocking Northstar out with several well placed blows, his shocked expression priceless then she held open her hands and shruiken appeared, flying into Bobby who was barely conscious, disabling him. "Behind me, chief, I think I know what to do," Paulie said as he ran towards Sabine. Sabine flipped backwards, landing with the grace of a falling feather, opened her hands and beckoned him. "Sabine has no use for you, Paulie. You I have been given as a kill." "Is that right?" Paulie grinned as Sabine charged into him with a flurry of kicks and jabs that had no effect upon his invulnerable flesh. "How about this!" he laughed then savagely kicked her in the crotch. "Works on women too." Sabine fell into a crouch then looked up, gasping in pain and grinning. "Yes, it does, however everything is fluid." With those words, Sabine's flesh flowed like water until she was a man and came up with a blow that sent Paulie hurtling hundreds of feet, his exclamation heard across the battlefield until he landed nearly half a mile away. "I do not need to keep any part of my body that is in pain." Magma stood up, flames flickering from her body. "Psyche, I take it that Sabine is a metamorphic as well." "Amara, I'm not sure what the hell Sabine is! But she.now he, is very good." Sabine's swords were sheathed and he laid his palms out flat, energy cascading outwards like a wave that knocked the two X-Men to the ground. Sabine rose into the air, his body surrounded by flares of plasma energy and he fired another cascade at them, this time though it was stopped by an ice wall. "Once I remember what frog legs told me, I realized that my body, like yours, is a choice. And right now I choose the form that is gonna kick your ass!" Iceman roared, rising on a sled of ice, his body grostequely over- proportioned and spiked. Sabine was startled by the speed which Iceman traveled the ramp, not so much carrying him as extending his body up so that the slamming blow to the ground could be achieved. Psyche took the chance at lashing out with her psi power at both Sabine and the blue woman, reasoning that the invisible woman could reach her with telepathy so she could be struck down mentally. Thousands of images came sprouting forth from both minds and Sabine curled into a ball then spasmed out, plasma again tidal waving into them all. Meridian, miles away, slammed back into her chair. She had to retreat from Sabine, from the battlefield so that her mind wouldn't be so violently rendered as her servant's was. She felt for the mental connection again, and wordlessly encouraged Sabine to look beyond all of the manifested fears. They were not real. There was only one true fear that Sabine need concern himself with. Failing Meridian. Paulie and Carlos ran over to the two X-Women who were keeping their distance from Sabine but ready to strike at a moment's notice. If the mutant metamorph was wise, he wouldn't get up. But Sabine turned a feral look on his face and smiled. "For that, I will take pleasure in this." 


	5. Meridian, Marauders, and San Madre

X-Men: Sanctuary Issue # 5 By Kyle Phoenix  
  
Madripoor, High Town  
  
Scattered throughout the rubble of High Town Madripoor the X-Men found that the Marauders had in no way tired of savagery. Each blow was met with the deadliest of responses and still the battle was inconclusive. Both groups were worn out by the melee and it still wasn't clear who the victor would be.  
But Paulie was proud of himself.  
He hadn't screamed or cried out once and Blockbuster was smashing yet another massive fist into his body, sending him through a storefront. In followed the big monster, bald and thick browed, his fingers flexing as he made another fist to strike Paulie with. They'd been trading punches for a few minutes now, unfortunately Paulie didn't have the muscle mass to back up his invulnerability. He could take it but he couldn't dish it out. So all he had was his wits and next to someone like Blockbuster, only a miniscule amount of comparable super strength. Mainly since his body wouldn't break or muscles snap, he could lift a car if he got the right leverage. His strength did seem to be a dozen times more than a normal man however, Xavier had theorized that psychologically Paulie had developed his invulnerability from anxiety and fear about being hurt so that he was to some unconscious degree limiting a large increase in strength as well. Or he could simply be a mutant who would always lack super strength. Not every power set was complimentary.  
"Ok, you freak, I'm gonna have to take you down hard!" Paulie snapped, steadying his body for his next move. He would use leverage not strength to do this right the first time.  
Paulie stood up and took the next blows, then grabbed Blockbuster's wrists, yanked hard until the massive Marauder was tumbling head first down a flight of stairs. Paulie snatched up a metal rod and leaped down the stairs, standing on Blockbuster's back, then with all of his might, drove the pipe into the man's spine. Though the skin didn't break, Blockbuster howled in agony and swatted Paulie through several walls.  
"You will die slowly for that!" Blockbuster roared, thrashing his way through the walls until he came upon Paulie who was lying curled up on the floor.  
"Guess what?" Paulie coughed.  
"What?!" Blockbuster demanded.  
"Your inner probably ain't as tough as your outer!" Paulie screamed and drove the pipe into the mutant's open mouth, upwards and into his brain, killing him instantly. Blockbuster fell back, dumfounded and dead in an instant. "Surprised ain't you, motherfucker! Huh?! HUH? Yeah, thought I was gonna go all Cyclops on your beefy ass and play fair, right? Nope, I read. Not only are you guys the official mad dogs of the mutant world, you're also a bunch of clones. And I'm pro-choice, baby! You ain't nothing but something that ain't even covered by the goddamn Constitution!" Paulie spit on him, his own blood from the inside of his mouth, coming it, the inspiration for his final blow. "That's the problem with these X jokers, you gotta leave a few bodies around every once in awhile so people know not to fuck with you. Hey, maybe 'Constitution'? That's a good code name."  
He gave it a moment of thought then shook his head as he hurried back outside.  
Nah, it sounded like he had the ability to not vomit.  
  
Arclight slammed her fists on the ground sending a violent shock wave that caused windows to blow apart, cars to tumble, and Psyche, Carlos and Iceman to fall to the ground.  
"Looks like I get to burn some X-Men too! Could this gig be any better?" Arclight chuckled.  
"Have a care, cow, those are my teammates!" Northstar said, slamming into Arclight from behind, then snapping back into the air, slamming into her again, then repeating several times, until she had been smashed through the pavement. Psyche, on her knees, didn't hesitate as she reached into Arclight's mind and brutally ripped out her worst fear for all to see. The hazy image seemed to be the incubation tanks these clones were held in and then it was opened and the face of Sinister appeared. Arclight crouched screaming in dread at the thought of being awakened once again from what she hoped would be death to fight again for a master she couldn't get away from.  
"Nicely done," Allegra complimented as Iceman froze Arclight from head to toe.  
"We try to get the job done," Psyche shrugged as they got to their feet.  
"Watch out for that arrogance, red skin," Scalphunter said from the other end of the street opening fire with a heavy artillery gun of his own creation.  
"Rabbit!" Psyche shouted as Allegra pulled her behind a car and Northstar scooped up Iceman who had thrown up a hasty ice shield to cover their dispersal. The shield was sliced to chips in seconds by the bullets.  
  
"My hero! Whatever would I do without you?" Iceman cooed mockingly, airborne under Northstar's perpetual grimace.  
"Become the first ingredient in a pina colada," Northstar said circling back.  
Scalphunter had continued to fire, with expert marksmanship so as not to hit his teammate, until the ice encasing Arclight was weakened enough for her to rip it apart angrily.  
"Take out Scalphunter, we'll take her down!" Psyche shouted to her airborne teammates and they sailed off towards the building their target had been shooting from.  
"Bitch! I will kill you for that!" Arclight screamed charging towards Psyche. Psyche easily ducked under Arclight's first blow and came up with a mean upper cut that had barely any effect upon the woman.  
"Allow me," Allegra stand, his hands pressing on Psyche's body for a brief moment so that he could get airborne enough to kick Arclight back.  
"Not good enough, spic!" Arclight said, grabbing Allegra's foot before he had landed and swatting him at Psyche like a club. Psyche leaped over Allegra, used Arclight's shoulders as balance to flip over, grabbing the woman's hair at the last second. Before her feet were even on the ground she had Arclight bending backwards and then on her back being flipped into a car before the woman was quite sure what had happened.  
"Excellent," Allegra said, having fallen to the ground. He shoved Psyche to the side as Arclight charged like a mad bull between them and they both slammed their elbows down onto her neck. Psyche's hand came around with her psi bow and arrow ready, a quick flick and the arrow was lodged in Arclight's back, the woman writhing in pain.  
"Allow me for her slurring of us both," Allegra said.  
"By all means," Psyche laughed.  
Allegra grabbed the back of Arclight's neck and closed his eyes. A moment later she had stopped fighting the still embedded and glow psi arrow and was unconscious.  
"You want to explain how you did that?" Psyche asked him.  
"When we have more time, I promise."  
  
Iceman kept up the return volley of ice spears at Scalphunter, who was running through a shopping center, firing indiscriminately over his shoulder at the sliding Iceman and the airborne Northstar. The speedster concerned himself with yanking and dropping to safety people who were in the line of fire from the Marauder's wild shots.  
"We have to end this, Iceman," Northstar said to his teammate.  
"Ok, switch!" Iceman said and Northstar dove down in pursuit of Scalphunter on foot as Iceman's slide rose up, ice walls freezing up behind him to protect the bystanders.  
Northstar zipped through people, cursing the fact that it seemed to be a popular mall and that they had to watch out from hitting the people but that Scalphunter could use them as targets.  
Northstar increased his speed dramatically then stopped short suddenly, the air pressure lashing through the crowd and slamming them all to the ground, including Scalphunter. Ice blocks appeared on the villain's arms and instant later but before they could secure him properly the sky light above shattered and Archangel and Harpoon came tumbled through, locked in a vicious fistfight.  
"The glass, Northstar!" Iceman shouted.  
"Yes, yes, I see it and I'm dealing with it, Drake. Don't get your shorts in a bunch," Northstar sighed and began soaring back and forth in a circular formation around the ground floor until an updraft as created. His only concern was that his teammate might find it disconcerting. Sabine watched them closely, the X-Men engaging the Marauders and she held her breath because other than Meridian, herself, none of them knew which X- Man was their first target. Her employer was a shrewd, one to not let all of her secrets out at once.  
Now? She asked her mistress mentally.  
Not yet, soon.  
  
"This madness ends now, you hear me, butcher! You killed children, you even destroyed my wings before but I won't allow it again!" Archangel roared as he smashed through the mall skylight with Harpoon. He'd spotted the man covering his teammates from the roof and dive-bombed into him. Harpoon though surprised was far from stunned as he gave Archangel blow for blow, not a care to his fate as he fell through the air.  
Suddenly Northstar's updraft stilled them both in mid-air for an instant and then shot them back up through the roof. Archangel used to the surprise of up air currents, twisted his wings so that they took full advantage of the push and yanked Harpoon almost a thousand feet into the air.  
"You may be tough, Harpoon but I've learned not to hesitate," Archangel said to the Inuit man as he spun around and threw Harpoon towards the ground. Harpoons screams could be heard for almost two blocks and then they ended as he crashed like a small meteor into a storefront.  
  
"Fool! You would think that you would tire of this!" Magma shouted at Riptide as he spun his body like a blur, razor sharp resin stars firing at her.  
"I enjoy a good kill, woman!" He said advancing towards her slowly as she kept blasting in front of herself, destroying the stars.  
"I am not an easy kill, little man! I am both an X-Man and a Lord Cardinal and I tire of this sullying of my hands with a monster low enough to both slaughter innocents and then rape a war torn country of the few coins it has left!"  
He pressed closer to her, forcing her to generate even greater body temperatures to destroy the resin stars. Suddenly he was close enough to grab her throat, his hands seemingly unfazed by the heat radiating from her. "Eh, it's a living, what can I say?"  
"Start with: Our Father who art in Heaven?" Magma suggested grinning evilly and two columns of molten earth shot out of the soil did a sharp ninety-degree turn and crushed Riptide between them.  
  
Now, Meridian ordered.  
Sabine rejoiced and ran from the lobby of the bank the Marauders had been robbing and where she'd been standing off to the side in a trench coat towards the X-Men. The trench coat was flung away revealing the silk bodysuit with leather straps across the chest to hold the back sheaths. Pulling her swords from the sheaths, arms and blades blurring as she streaked at Paulie who was coming out of a store he and Blockbuster had crashed into.  
"Stupid idiot," he said, Sabine's blades the least of what he was afraid of from this group. He arrogantly reached out to catch the blades in mid-flight only to have Sabine swipe her blades away from him at what would've been the moment of contact and kick her leg into his, swiping him to the ground. Before he could move, she dug her sword into the ground below, pulled up an electrical cable and flicked it at him, the other sword, cut the casing open. The ensuing shock caused Paulie to shriek before he could weakly roll away from the live wire. Sabine was still moving, charging towards the other X-Men at the end of the street.  
"I've got her!" Psyche yelled, manifesting and firing psi arrows with her bow shaft but Sabine leapt suddenly, almost twenty feet directly up then dropped to the ground in a tumble. She came up completely having hopped over the arrows and slashed at her adversary. Psyche backpedaled, finally forced to use her bow shaft to block one of the blades as it slammed at her. Sabine smiled as the katana split open and metal needles flew out.  
"Aiiiiiieeeeeee!" Psyche screamed as the needles dug deeply into her forearms that she'd brought up to protect her face.  
Allegra slammed into Sabine from behind, having moved faster and quieter than anyone would've expected. Sabine rolled with the blow and came back up in a crouching stance, blades extended.  
Carlos Allegra? He's with them now? Meridian whispered in genuine surprise. Sabine, you're no match for him. They probably don't know the full extent of his abilities. He won't allow you to kill him but he will restrain himself. Use that advantage.  
Sabine grunted an acknowledgement then thrust herself at Allegra who used the flats of his hands to block the slashes, his accuracy remarkably as fast as her hyper kinetic attacks until Sabine somersaulted over his head landing her swords pointing forward. He turned to her back and Sabine clicked two buttons on her sword hilts, the blades collapsed from facing forward and shot out of the hilts in the opposite direction. He expertly twisted but was still impaled by one blade in the mid-section and grazed in the leg by the other. Sabine retracted the blades and somersaulted over him again, tossing her blades up in the air as she slammed her leg into his kidney and then several sharp nerve pinches into his back. She spun around, caught the dropping blades, and flicked a switch and electrical arcs burst from the blades lifting him agonizingly off of the ground.  
Very good, Sabine, keep him off balance! He's worth the electrical charge and not that idiot Provenzano! Meridian laughed then warned calmly. Behind you.  
Sabine twisted as Archangel swooped down, hands clasped in a double handed fist and slammed into her side, his original intent having been more impactful but he'd stopped the attack on Carlos Allegra who was stumbling away, bleeding profusely from his side. Psyche was also crouched down, pulling what looked like thin knives from her forearms. Their psi rapport was leaking her distress and he purposefully focused calming thoughts at her. He wouldn't let this go any further.  
"We've taken out nearly all of your team, give it up, lady," Archangel said, having flown back a few feet to avoid the length of her blades.  
Sabine grinned as she turned to the aloft Archangel, spinning her blades and the ground trembled as Magma burst up from a fissure, between them, covered in lava and tossed a clearly broken Riptide, questionably alive, at her feet.  
"The ass never had a chance," Magma spat in disgust. "He may twist the wind but I am one with the earth."  
"Careful, she's a tough one!" Paulie yelled as the three X-Men circled Sabine.  
Have a care, Sabine. They are going to be much more vicious having dealt with the other Marauders and you've yet to acquire the target.  
Yes, mistress.  
Sabine leaped up into the air, almost forty feet then dropped down spinning and contorting wildly, her swords slashing the air violently in every which direction until her target was uncertain. She flicked another button on the hilt of her sword and three inches from the tip of the blade rocketed off and impaled itself into Magma's arm, the carbotanium not melting at the searing temperatures the X-Men's body was giving off. Magma shrieked in pain and shock and fired a blast of flame at Sabine who was already back flipping away from it. Magma reverted to her human form, the poison secreted from the opening blade tip.  
Archangel went to help Amara, who waved him away. "I can use the earth to help me!" with that the earth enveloped her body, a flare of flames and lava erupting from where she lay, expunging the poison and the blade tip. The earthen cocoon opened to reveal a healed but unconscious Amara.  
"Form on me! Keep out of her reach!" Archangel yelled to Iceman and Northstar as they rushed over to aid the others in taking down the last Marauder.  
"We lost Scalphunter when you came through the roof!" Iceman yelled at Archangel. Sabine merely grinned and pirouetted into the air, defying gravity as if it were a choice and not a definite, landing in front of a startled Iceman.  
"She's moving at super speed, that's why you're all so useless!" Northstar realized, ascertaining that the single woman had caused so much damage to his teammates. He missiled towards her but she was already in elegant, eerily silent motion. Sabine turned and swiped at Iceman, cutting deeply into his iced up body, then she plunged the blade deep into his chest and pressed a button. Small pores opened within the blade delivering a potent acid explosion within him.  
"AHHHHHHHH!" Iceman screamed as Sabine turned to Northstar as the speedster snatched her up into the air.  
"Someone help Bobby!" Northstar yelled into his comm link as he rapidly ascended higher and higher, the friction, air pressure change and lack of oxygen intended to knock the woman unconscious. Or kill her. At this point in the battle that had ravaged the financial district he wasn't sure if the X-men were eager to make discernment on what was too far with wanton murderers.  
Mistress? Sabine questioned.  
No, don't kill him. He has potential. More than even he knows. He won't kill you, Meridian promised. Let him achieve his desired results.  
Northstar felt Sabine struggle for a few minutes and then finally lose consciousness, he casually arced back down towards Madripoor island, thousands of feet below them, the extreme shifts having no effect upon his body physiology which granted him superior protection to high speed.  
"Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Help me!" Bobby shrieked as his ice body began crumbling in on itself, the acid eating away his insides.  
Archangel looked desperately at Psyche. "What can we do?"  
Psyche shook her head, her arms still bleeding from the needles she'd pulled out. "Actually, I don't think we have to do anything. I'm not seeing the specter of death on him, he's not dying. He just thinks he is. Bobby, focus! In ice form you control your every molecule!" she shouted at him, reluctant to touch him as the acid was bubbling through the surface of his ice "skin".  
Carlos Allegra limped over, obviously badly wounded but still able to function. He grabbed Bobby's ice hand and closed his eyes, focusing. "Be calm, Robert. Steady your mind as the Professor taught you. Close your eyes. You are envisioning pain, there is no true pain. I feel no pain from you."  
Archangel looked warily at Carlos, he was still a Lord Cardinal of the Hellfire Club, he didn't trust him, no matter his pledge to protect Amara.  
Psyche spoke up, getting vague psionic impressions of what was occurring. "Relax, Warren, its some sort of shared empathic wave. He's focusing his psi self at Bobby's core, to get Bobby to stop articulating himself emotionally to a body that he relates to his other form. He's just ice now. By choice. By panicking, he's forgotten that."  
"I've dealt with her," Northstar said landing and tossing Sabine to the ground as he rushed to Bobby's side. "Do not die on me, Drake, there is still a plethora of embarrassing and humiliating situations I have to put you into!"  
"I-I'm trying!" Bobby groaned. "Carlos is helping but it's hard to stop thinking of this as my body. To repair it. I'm not sure where to start. Carlos is weak too, in pain, don't let him do this too far," Iceman moaned, seeing the strain on Carlos' face, his eyes shut tightly as he focused his self into him to affirm his core self.  
Northstar grabbed Carlos' other hand and simply pictured in his mind Iceman as completely whole in a pristine ice form and then a picture of Bobby as human and healed.  
"That is what you look like, you fool!" Northstar said, immediately feeling part of the psi link. "Carlos, can only sympathize not heal you. It's why he's such a good Bishop and will never be a Lord Cardinal King."  
"Jean-Paul, are you still mad about Madrid?" Carlos teased, chuckling, even as blood came to his lips.  
"I know both of you. Better than you know yourselves. You both whimper and jest and capitulate to have identities. Well now it's time to, by force of will alone, live! When this is over, genuflecting will be payment enough. Now focus, Bobby, we can't send Carlos back to Spain in a body bag because you drained him too far. Though there would be an uproar of applause. It is rude to reward such an insufferable ass," a deep white glow extended from Northstar to the link between Carlos and Bobby and both men seemed to draw strength from it. Similar to the flash of light Northstar seemed to give off when flying, he was glowing first warmly and then brighter and brighter, until it was difficult to look at him. With eyes aflash, Northstar then focused the light into Carlos and Iceman, both of them beginning to glow as he had, and more importantly heal.  
"O-ok," Bobby said and slowly the acid seemed to stop bubbling so rapidly and instead ice bandages appeared and then the acid was forced out of Iceman's body until there were crackling puddles on the ground.  
"Not bad, Jean-Paul, were you going to tell us about that healing light of yours?" Psyche asked sarcastically.  
Northstar sat back on his haunches, the glow subsiding far quicker than it had built up. "I've only been able to do this with my sister, to help her at times with her fractured identities, but I reasoned that Carlos's empathic psychic healing could tap into my strength of will that they both obviously lack," Northstar said snidely breaking contact. Bobby and Carlos both gasped as if an oxygen line had been taken away and then Iceman was able to shift to a fully human form. Carlos merely dropped to his haunches, holding his nearly healed wound, not looking as ragged anymore.  
"We need to get that tended to," Archangel said helping Carlos to his feet. "And thanks, Carlos. Between the Professor's nod and you unhesitantly helping us twice I'm willing to offer you a hand of at the very least amicability."  
"Why thank you, Mr. Worthington," Carlos rasped, "you'll find that our motives and morals are not as far apart as my associations may've originally brought you to believe."  
"Touching," Sabine sneered then leapt at the group of them. She kicked Bobby and Psyche to one side then hurled steel pins at Archangel, nicking his wings in several places. Archangel tried to flap his way airborne but a thick resin was spreading like fire over his wings secreted from the pins until they were completely encased in a dark gelatinous goo as firm, dense and heavy as amber. Never having been without the balance of his wings but still saddled with their considerable weight he tumbled backgrounds, taking Carlos down to the ground with him.  
"Enough!" Psyche said,, her psi powers ablaze and a staff appeared in her bloodied hands. "This ends here and now!"  
"Allow me!" Northstar said, dashing into Sabine with half a dozen blows that seemed to be moving in slow motion as she back flipped away from them, throwing equally vicious jabs and punches at him. Northstar maintained a heightened speed, increasing it in increments to dodge her blows but at best they were both evenly matched, they were at a stalemate of blocking blows rather than truly landing them. To the others it looked like the ultimate martial arts exchange with no headway being made by either.  
"Danielle!" Carlos groaned and Psyche helped him to stand, using her shoulder to brace him. We can't defeat her because of the thread. Can you see the thread?"  
"Thread? What are you talking--------?" but the very mentioned of it suddenly seemed to make it visible. Or better yet, apparent, apparent to her. There was a thread, no wider than a piece of cloth thread that seemed to be in Sabine's back and extending up into the air. "I see it! So we cut it?"  
"She is literally on the strings of someone else. And if it's the Marauders she leads then I would suggest Mr. Sinister. I doubt that either you or I have the power to cut his string to his puppet, but we might be able to disrupt it," Carlos said weakly to her.  
"Ok, how?" Psyche mumbled, she preferred direct action and the range of Carlos' psi abilities seemed to not be amazingly powerful but incredibly keen. She wasn't sure if she trusted him more or less for them now being revealed.  
"Psionics is not my power base.merely an offshoot. But I can perceive on different planes. I can show you how to attack the thread itself if you'll link with me. It doesn't exist in this plane of reality," he whispered. The flurry of Northstar and Sabine's violent dance to Carlos' eyes an obvious standoff.  
"You're always so polite, Carlos, so cautious with your words. Say what it is or what you mean, man, we don't have a lot of time here!" Psyche barked.  
Carlos laughed, choking again then turned her face to his with his free hand. "For one so powerful and ripened with the Valkyrie essence, you are such a tempestuous one. Look at me, Danielle and see what I hold within my essence!"  
Psyche felt her mind being first poked at, almost cautiously, or rather politely. And that polite touching could only be the ever-courteous Allegra. Finally she felt his essence spreading over hers, touching her being without trying to pierce into her sense of Self, merely becoming like a drape over her mind. He leaned in and kissed her, long and deep and at first she was enraptured, amazed at the gentleness she sensed in him and then she realized it was an ulterior motive as his salty blood was forced down her throat by his tongue.  
Don't resist, Danielle, the Beast is strong but there shall be no harm, Carlos projected into her mind and Psyche hesitated wondering what he was talking about then she saw the Death image in his face, crawling up her flesh, seeping into her. Death was in his blood! But not like a biological disease, this Death was an Entity. So old that she got whispers of it in words, in names she knew were older than anything she could ever hope to speak. But she knew that it hungered. It hungered for light, for flesh, for breath, and when it saw all three in Psyche it instinctively grabbed at her.  
She shrieked and tried to refuse him, to put up her psi shields but Carlos, weakened by a wound, held her in an iron grip, body and mind. Get out of me!  
You are one of Death's champions, Danielle, do not insult one of it's relatives, Carlos smiled and she felt him grip her in the comfort of his own essence as a barrier against the darkness, a shield from that which he gave her. He was allowing her to share in it but not be possessed by it, infected by it, as he was. Her first instinct had been to panic but now she understood that Carlos was both gleeful to share this secret and deeply concerned that she not be infected by it. She also caught the wisp of a secret of his, he had manipulated Amara into liking him, into wanting him as her second, as her bodyguard, but Danielle fascinated him. Something akin to infatuation, as if he had so many things he wanted to share with her, talk to her about that only she would understand.  
That they were akin to the other.  
Danielle shrieked again and tumbled to the ground, Carlos landing on top of her, their mouths still locked, clutching each other until he slipped unconscious. But she could feel that his mind was strong, glowing with power even and his body was healing, and somehow the transfer had boosted his ability to heal rapidly. She could sense that the wound was almost completely healed. Similar to her rapport with Warren she could feel deeply into Carlos's mental state but unlike Warren, Carlos had experience in keeping his mind private, segmented. She could sense him, his presence, his healing but his thoughts were his own. There was something in the blood which had locked them into a rapport, some kind of animal----hadn't he called it a Beast?  
"Paulie, help her!" Archangel ordered, trying to crawl over to Dani. "It felt like she was drowning in something. Something in his mind!" He clawed his way across the ground trying to get closer to her, his wings like huge stone weights, not sure what Carlos had done to her though her could feel her calming through their rapport.  
"Dani? You ok? What happened?" Paulie asked as he lifted Carlos off of her and gently rolled him onto his back. "That did not look like a fight. In fact it looked like humping. Which if that's his super power, I will not be practicing with him in the Danger Room. Though if it's a new power of yours, I'm willing to be your test case when you need it."  
"It wasn't a fight. I'm fine. He's a psi but not like we understand, he was trying to show me something Help me see what he can see on Sabine," Psyche said, letting her teammate help her to her feet as she took a good look at Sabine and Northstar who looked like vague impressions striking at each other. But with a bit of focus, almost like holding Carlos's mental hand she could see them moving much slower, closer to human speed which explained how he'd been able to fight her. But the thread was a fully intact cord now, wrapped firmly around the hand of a woman, an astral figure that was a deep cerulean.  
"Who are you?" Psyche demanded of the woman. "Yes, you!"  
Meridian turned, mildly surprised at their battlefield improvisation but not afraid. I am the one who holds Sabine's conduit, Meridian answered as if it was simply the most obvious answer on the planet.  
"Who are you talking to, Moonstar? Don't go bonkers on me now!" Paulie asked nervously.  
"You're not Sinister!" Psyche yelled.  
Meridian considered her answer then psi spoke so only Psyche could hear her. As a noun, no, but as an adjective, I'd have to say, yes.  
"I take it you're seeing something I can't?" Paulie nodded. "Or that a battlefield hump drives you crazy?"  
"Yes, Paulie, a woman. She's all blue and she has Sabine on a leash. I don't think we're dealing with Sinister at all."  
Sabine, if you're done exercising, you may leave with our prize now, Meridian said calmly. First, Iceman, he presents the most threat should he be accidentally harmed to my long term plans.  
Yes, mistress.  
Sabine tripled her speed, easily knocking Northstar out with several well placed blows, his shocked expression priceless then she held open her hands and shruiken appeared, flying into Bobby who was barely conscious, disabling him.  
"Behind me, chief, I think I know what to do," Paulie said as he ran towards Sabine. Sabine flipped backwards, landing with the grace of a falling feather, opened her hands and beckoned him. "Sabine has no use for you, Paulie. You I have been given as a kill."  
"Is that right?" Paulie grinned as Sabine charged into him with a flurry of kicks and jabs that had no effect upon his invulnerable flesh. "How about this!" he laughed then savagely kicked her in the crotch. "Works on women too."  
Sabine fell into a crouch then looked up, gasping in pain and grinning. "Yes, it does, however everything is fluid."  
With those words, Sabine's flesh flowed like water until she was a man and came up with a blow that sent Paulie hurtling hundreds of feet, his exclamation heard across the battlefield until he landed nearly half a mile away. "I do not need to keep any part of my body that is in pain."  
Magma stood up, flames flickering from her body. "Psyche, I take it that Sabine is a metamorphic as well."  
"Amara, I'm not sure what the hell Sabine is! But she.now he, is very good." Sabine's swords were sheathed and he laid his palms out flat, energy cascading outwards like a wave that knocked the two X-Men to the ground. Sabine rose into the air, his body surrounded by flares of plasma energy and he fired another cascade at them, this time though it was stopped by an ice wall.  
"Once I remember what frog legs told me, I realized that my body, like yours, is a choice. And right now I choose the form that is gonna kick your ass!" Iceman roared, rising on a sled of ice, his body grotesquely over-proportioned and spiked. Sabine was startled by the speed which Iceman traveled the ramp, not so much carrying him as extending his body up so that the slamming blow to the ground could be achieved.  
Psyche took the chance at lashing out with her psi power at both Sabine and the blue woman, reasoning that the invisible woman could reach her with telepathy so she could be struck down mentally. Thousands of images came sprouting forth from both minds and Sabine curled into a ball then spasmed out, plasma again tidal waving into them all.  
Meridian, miles away, slammed back into her chair. She had to retreat from Sabine, from the battlefield so that her mind wouldn't be so violently rendered as her servant's was. She felt for the mental connection again, and wordlessly encouraged Sabine to look beyond all of the manifested fears. They were not real. There was only one true fear that Sabine need concern himself with.  
Failing Meridian.  
Paulie and Carlos ran over to the two X-Women who were keeping their distance from Sabine but ready to strike at a moment's notice. If the mutant metamorph was wise, he wouldn't get up. But Sabine turned a feral look on his face and smiled. "For that, I will take pleasure in this."  
His hands erupted with plasma energy, blasting through the X-Men as he rose into the air.  
Psyche threw up her arms but then felt a slamming in her side; it was Northstar shoving them all out of the way of the plasma blasts at super speed.  
"I do so tire of the constant rescuing of you all," Northstar sighed then stopped in mid-flight, reversed directions and headed at Sabine.  
Sabine's hands began to radiate plasma brighter and brighter until Northstar was about to touch him then a shield deflected the speedster, sending him ricocheting off into the upper atmosphere. Magma almost gleefully opened fire with her highest-level lava bolts only to have Sabine's plasma blasts disperse them.  
Psyche reached at Sabine's mind again but this time the shapeshifter was ready and flew down, grabbing the front of her jacket and yanking her into the air.  
"Hey!" Paulie shouted, leaping wildly and catching onto Sabine's legs. "She's ours, no fair!"  
"I second that!" Iceman said sliding by and firing razor sharp ice pellets into Sabine's face, distracting him enough so that Iceman could snatch his teammate free. Sabine streaked away from Iceman, snatching Paulie up and then fired a plasma blast directly into his chest, grinning as the shocked X-Man was propelled through the air.  
"Perhaps it is time that I show you what I am capable of!" Carlos roared, his trench coat opening as the winds around him began to swirl and the midday clear sky go dark. For half a mile, the dark clouds rumbled and lightning crackled above them as Carlos's eye flared crimson.  
"Did you know he could do that?" Iceman asked Psyche.  
"No. I'm starting to get real nervous about Mr. Allegra," she murmured but even as she said it, she didn't believe her own doubts. There was something inherently noble about Carlos, as if he kept secrets not to profit himself but to protect others. She saw flashes of France in her mind's eye, a tall green eyed woman with blonde curls half dressed in a corset and the lower half of a Victorian gown.  
"Carlos?' the woman questioned. "Whatever are you doing and who is this common woman?"  
Danielle, you're not helping. You must learn how to maintain focus, Carlos told her mentally through their new rapport and then the images went away.  
Was that someone now? Is she in France now? Or was that somewhen else? Psyche asked, shocked but curious.  
Again, in time, Danielle. I fear we have a greater threat at hand then even we could've surmised at first.  
I agree. Are you controlling the weather? We can get out of here if you need space to pound Sabine.  
No. This isn't so much of an illusion as I'm merely "slamming my hands into a puddle". It looks like it's building to more than it truly will.  
Suddenly they both felt the shocked traveling through the rapport and heard the crude mental shout. How is he in our rapport?!  
Warren? Psyche realized.  
Oh my. A psionic ménage a trois, Carlos actually grinned and they could both feel Warren blush violently even in his awe at the raw intimacy they all felt with one another, with varying degrees of comfortability.  
Magma, focusing, had drawn herself up on an earthen column and was hurling bolts of flame and lava at Sabine but it was clear that though Sabine dodged a few and blasted some others, he was merely waiting for a clear shot not truly challenged.  
Hold my mind and hold onto the Beast you feel, Danielle. Think of it as a knife that we're going to stab Sabine with, Carlos thought and in an instant they had joined together in intent, psychically pushing aside a befuddled Warren and launching their mental attack at Sabine.  
Sabine screamed and dropped to the ground, fears, loves, desires, joys all manifesting around him and now plasma energy erupting from cracks in his skin. Carlos pulled back from his miniscule elemental display until the sky had returned to normal and cautiously approached Sabine.  
I prepare for every eventuality, X-Men. We will have our prize, Meridian whispered and her interest was piqued as she could see that Carlos had heard a glimmer of her words. Sabine reverted to a woman again and this time, stood up, fully healed, clutching her blades. Carlos now suspected that the blades were in fact a manifestation of the feminine entity powers and the plasma energy of the masculine form. He smiled inwardly as he felt Danielle concur with his understanding and several seconds later Warren as well. It was quite interesting how this had happened and more interesting how it was stronger as a triumvirate than he would've believed.  
"I can continue to maintain switching back and forth between forms until I have eliminated you all," Sabine threatened as Iceman and Psyche landed behind him.  
"The rest of the Marauders are down, Sabine, you gain nothing by fighting us to a stand still and we both out-number and out power you!" Magma said fiercely landing on the other side of the small woman.  
"You think this is all my mistress has made me capable of?" Sabine chuckled and then jammed her swords into the ground. For seconds they all froze, steeling themselves for whatever was to happen next. When nothing did they looked around curiously.  
"Ummmm, I think your trick didn't work," Iceman grinned. "How about you get that gunk off of our guy Archangel and we'll tell the police how nicely you surrendered?"  
"Imbecile!" Sabine laughed and shafts of light shot up into the sky from each sword's hilt and then fanned open Arclight, Blockbuster, Riptide and Harpoon hurrying out of one portal.  
And then shockingly enough another set of Marauders coming out to cover Sabine's back from the second portal. From the first portal came another set of the quartet and then another from the second and in quick succession two more sets from each portal. Four sets of Marauders, sixteen in total faced the X-Men. Clones. There was no reason to not buy spare sets, Meridian chuckled miles away, loving the sight of complete shock on the X-Men's faces.  
"Rock them, Amara!" Psyche screamed and a massive localized earth quake hit instantly, Magma riding past the scattering Marauders on a blasting stream of lava, all of them shocked at how fast she could call up so much power. But Psyche knew her teammate had trouble not calling up a huge degree of lava and earth to manipulate and at some point she would have to ask her would Madripoor be paying for all of this sudden seismic activity. Iceman threw up an ice shield, which formed into a dense ball around them as Psyche snatched Carlos inside, and Magma swept them along.  
"Northstar?" Psyche shouted over her comm link, watching as Iceman focused on maintaining the integrity of the ice enclosure against the lava outside. They had theorized this as quick exiting move but how long could he keep them safe had never been practiced before.  
"I am fine and I've spotted Paulie. I also can see that the Marauders have multiplied exponentially," he said as he streaked back towards the battlefield. He had been briefly stunned but was now both angry and at the same time concerned for himself and his teammates. Their second mission had snowballed into a fiasco of deadly proportions.  
"Retrieve Warren first, he's on the outskirts of those monsters!" Psyche shouted and suddenly felt something through her rapport.  
"I feel it too!" Carlos said and collapsed to one knee.  
"They aren't pursuing you," Northstar said from a topside view, "they're surrounding Warren."  
"This Meridian woman is somehow cutting off our mental link to Warren!" Psyche shocked. It felt almost like Warren was dying an inch at a time, like his light within her mind was dimming.  
You are not alone! Carlos shouted psychically and she wasn't sure if it was for her or Warren but the cool, obsidian firmness, like marble, strength that his psyche brought to the rapport reaffirmed the light, made it shine brighter.  
"What's the plan, chief? We going back into that? We just can't leave him!" Iceman shouted at her.  
"Magma, stop the push, we've got distance," Psyche said into her comm link and a moment later the ice ball melted open, iceman no longer reinforcing it and they were almost two city blocks away from where they'd been before.  
"I suspect that Warren was the target all along," Carlos said as Paulie came jogging down the street.  
"They got Wings, huh?" he asked. "is it just me or is he really becoming the Patty Hearst of the team?"  
"Yes," Magma answered, "but they seem to only be surrounding him, not harming him, nor disappearing.  
"Sabine is generating some sort of telepathic static field. Meridian must know about my rapport with him, she's trying to break it, I think," Psyche answered, examining the odds from every angle, she had to face that they were outgunned and outclassed. This was beginning to look like an ambush from the get go.  
"Umm, I have a question. Is that Phoenix, Psylocke and Colossus appearing over there or am I completely wrong in my omnibus knowledge of all things X-Men?" Paulie said, pointing further down the block and twenty feet in the air.  
"Considering the fact that two of them are dead and one isn't..this week, I sure as hell hope not," Iceman muttered.  
"No, that's Shadowcat. Looks like she's come to appreciate a good katana though," Magma said wryly.  
"And the woman?" Paulie asked.  
"Nemesis, from Alpha Flight. How on Earth she's come to be associated with us I have no idea, her cloak just looked like a bird's wings in the energy effect," Northstar explained, appearing next to the group in an instant. "The X-Men's obsession with Phoenix is really quite nauseating."  
"And I'm Peter. Peter Rasputin!" Peter smiled brightly, waving excitedly, wearing a leather tank top and pants in the stylized X uniform. "Look! I have a uniform just like you guys!"  
"I knew Peter Rasputin. Peter Rasputin was a good friend of mine. And you, sir, are no Peter Rasputin," Iceman snapped as the trio got closer though from a distance he did look like his dead comrade. Except for having much longer hair, a couple of inches shorter, being maybe thirty pounds lighter and definitely much tanner.  
"He's Peter's son. So technically he's Peter Rasputin, Jr.," Shadowcat explained to the X-men who responded in kind.  
"Well that explains it."  
"Obviously."  
"Of course."  
"He looks to be a year or two younger than Colossus, of course, he's his son. Colossus was an X-Man, we're totally against kids growing at a normal rate. Ask Cable."  
"We came as reinforcements and seeing as there are quadruplet Marauders surrounding Archangel out there, I take it that was a good idea?" Shadowcat smiled then quickly explained Nemesis having been part of the Australian government's idea and Alex Rosten back at the Sanctuary base.  
"He gave me this neat-o uniform but I didn't like the jacket," Peter smiled.  
"Did he just say "neat-o"?" Northstar snorted.  
"Don't even act like you're not checking him out, Twinkletoes, I'm not getting a woody and I know that he's one hot number," Paulie grinned, but he couldn't take his eyes off of Shadowcat. She was standing there in a midriff tank top, pants with part of the thighs cut out, weapons and satchels all over. Very Buffy the Vampire Slayer with golden arm bands and such a determined look in her eyes. He was in love. Well, lust at least. He had to make a good impression. He had to say something so that she would notice him and realize how much of an obvious lynchpin he was to this new team. How much he was the backbone of them all, how he was a guiding carrying force.  
"Hi, my name is Paulie but you can call me.Paulie," he said eagerly, until he realized what he was actually saying out loud and Shadowcat snickered.  
"D'oh!" Iceman mocked from behind Paulie and they all turned back to the stand off at hand.  
"I have the feeling that this was all an ambush to get Warren which is why he was incapacitated. Northstar could get over their the fastest but they would rip him apart before he could get Warren five feet and they know it," Psyche said.  
"Do we have any idea what they're waiting for?" Shadowcat asked.  
"I would surmise their leader, Meridian," Carlos said calmly.  
  
Sabine's sword portal opened once again and Meridian covered in a deep cobalt hooded cloak stepped through.  
"Is this where you threaten me and then commence to chop me into little pieces?" Archangel grunted angrily, he'd been trying to move, to crawl even but the resin on his wings had grown heavier and heavier as the minutes had passed. It felt like it must've weighed a ton. Have all the Marauders in quadruplicates strolling around him like a pack of angry wolves was making him feel dark and surly.  
"I am here for you. Surely, you must have surmised that by now," Meridian chuckled in a husky whisper.  
"Don't call me Shirley," Archangel said just to have a response as she kneeled down next to him. She shook off the hood.  
"How funny. Down to business. We have to get going, Warren, we can't stay here any longer and for reasons you'll come to understand, I cannot have my identity compromised by the locals."  
"By locals you mean----?"  
"Viper. Her army is on its way. I had a group of Marauders attack her offices to draw them away from here. But they've killed that team and now are but a few minutes away."  
"I take it that you've been buying the Marauder clones wholesale?" he snapped.  
"At ten million a group, it was not cheap," Meridian shrugged. "But back to you and I. There is a problem with Sabine's teleportational portals. They can transit anyone one way from a set spot but to return to that spot everyone must go willingly. You literally can decide whether or not to come with us, Warren."  
"Then I decide no. You're clearly insane and you've bought these poor creatures to further some twisted plan. You kind are all alike."  
"If you'll give me a few hours of your time, you'll come to see that I am of no other kind. I am original. However you must decide quickly. You have seen my face, you could betray me to Viper and then we would have a problem."  
"Afraid of her, are you?" Archangel chuckled. She was startlingly beautiful in spite of the fact that her long hair was a light blue, which matched her eyebrows and even her lipstick.  
"No, you misunderstand. Should that army arrive while I am still on this particular spot, Sabine and I will step through the portal. That will leave sixteen Marauders to tear into the army and your fellow X-Men. I don't care about winners or losers, I will consider this deal closed and two minutes later this entire island will be destroyed from a low orbiting satellite I have trained on it. Well over a million people dead because you decided to be stubborn. I promise no harm will come to you, you and I merely need to discuss some things."  
"You could've called my office for a meeting," he said glibly but the look in her ice blue eyes told him that she was telling the truth. That she was committed to winning and would destroy everything in her wake if that were no longer possible. "You shutdown the psi rapport?"  
"Yes, but it's proving to be more tenacious than I expected. Soon your fellow X-Men will have a direct psionic line into this conversation and that will nullify what I am about to offer you. Nullification of my offer results in this island being razed."  
"And what is it you offer?" Archangel asked, she'd covered so many of the bases. Meridian smiled. When they asked what the exact terms were that meant that they were closer to a yes than a no. She leaned down, her cheek lightly touching his as she whispered into his ear.  
He looked up at her stunned.  
"Oh, yes. Completely true. Now you see why I couldn't have anyone peeking into your head for the time being."  
Archangel nodded, then slammed his arm against the ground, he looked at his teammates so far away and the circle of Marauder's with their backs to him. The only one facing him was the impassive Sabine who held her swords at the ready to conceivably open another portal.  
  
"If we go hard and fast then we can snatch him out," Shadowcat nodded. "Northstar and I will be in and out with him in a flash. The rest of you just barrel into them."  
"They are unfamiliar with several of us, that will give us a distinct advantage," Nemesis offered.  
"Hopefully you'll be able to signal Gateway to pull us out with the Marauder's in tow? If we can get them onto home turf in the middle of nowhere we should be able to take them out. We've caused too much damage here with just a small team. We'd destroy the city if we started a full blown battle here," Psyche said to Nemesis who nodded.  
"Looks like we're about to start a new X-Men war on Madripoor," Iceman said and pointed at the half dozen tanks lead by Viper in a jeep that were rolling down the street towards them.  
"Sadly enough, we could use her help," Carlos said.  
"Look!" Paulie shouted and they all looked at the circle of Marauder's parting as one of the Blockbusters lifted Archangel and followed him and a blue cloaked figure into Sabine's sword portal.  
"No!" Psyche screamed then turned to Shadowcat and Northstar who were already gone, racing towards the Marauders.  
Sabine leaped up into the air and slashed her swords then dropped to the ground again, having increased her speed to the point of her actions not being visible. By the time Northstar and Shadowcat arrived, an instant after their teammate had gone into the portal, the entire group of Marauder clones had been slashed. Her blades moving space through them, corrupting time to the point that dead bodies collapsed around Northstar and Shadowcat as they came to a stop. Archangel was already gone.  
"No one can move that fast!" Northstar exclaimed.  
Shadowcat drew her katana and faced Sabine. "Obviously she can and I'll take her head if she doesn't bring him back!" The rest of the X-men had run over only to be revolted by the carnage around them. The Marauders were villains, yes but to suddenly be judged so disposable brought it home how pitiful they were. Only tools to be used by one master or another.  
"It was always a one way trip for me. I am to die here and take as many of you to the grave with me so that none may challenge my mistress for her prize!" Sabine screamed and leaped at the X-Men.  
Shadowcat coolly phased through Sabine then cracked her in the back with the hilt of her blade and twisted around, solidifying her feet to trip the woman. She was back in attack position by the time Sabine recovered and turned.  
"You don't want to do this, Sabine, we're ready for you. Both of you this time," Shadowcat said and gave a cue to the others. Peter raised his hands and the metal of Sabine's blades began to tremble, to lean towards him.  
"No!" she shrieked in pain.  
"You were right, they are a part of her!" Peter grimaced, his connection to the metal revealing an organic component, organic connection to the woman holding it. He let his affinity to metal go deeper into the connection and could almost visually see the metal itself networked throughout her body. He grasped at it, yanked at the metal connection, not caring the pain he wrought. For his entire social naïveté, Peter was raised a warrior in a far harsher world than the X-Men would ever know. He knew that if you allowed an enemy to recover, especially one so deadly, you ended up dead.  
Northstar crashed into Sabine, his fists a flurry of brutal snaps, dozens within a second focused into single points as the earth crept up around Sabine's lower extremities, holding her in face. Before she could resist Carlos and Psyche linked hands and smashed through her mind with psionic gifts, ripping ferociously through her mind. Blocks of ice formed around her hands, weighing them down to the ground as the intense cold kept seeping deeper and deeper into her arms, numbing them.  
Nemesis swooped down behind her, drew her own saber and crossed it in front of Sabine's throat then rasped," Now, my dear, you will tell us where our compatriot has been taken or I will behead you and see if your male counterpart will tell."  
"Kill me and you kill him," Sabine grunted.  
"Oh, well, we're inventive, we'll figure out a new way to find our teammate," Nemesis shrugged and pressed the metal into the woman's jugular.  
"I am not afraid to die," Sabine shrieked.  
"Good! I like a torture session that will last," Viper hollered as she rode over on a jeep driven by military officers. "Thank you, X-Men for your help in dealing with this menace. Though next time could you not leave so many body parts littering the field. We have children nearby, you know."  
"This woman helped someone else kidnap Archangel, we need to question her," Psyche said boldly.  
"After she's put into custody. She has much to answer for being a bank robber and such. Careful, Danielle, arguing international law is out of your range I'm sure. I am the sovereign of the land you stand on. You have my oath that she will not be killed before you can question her and that we have the facilities to detain her. Now I do hope we're going to avoid the X-Men tangling with my military. You and your ilk are heroes here, let's keep it that way," Viper grinned.  
"I will willingly go with Viper," Sabine said and after a long exchange of heated glares at Viper. They had accomplished their mission, Archangel as a possible casualty wasn't Viper's fault or Hightown's responsibility to deal with the ensuing damage they could cause.  
"Take her but becareful," Psyche spat. "No "accidents"."  
"Perish the thought," Viper said coolly and a Hummer pulled up with the equipment necessary to incapacitate the young woman.  
Mistress?  
Have no worries, Sabine, I will alert you to when the time is ripe. You are safe.  
  
San Madre, Argentina:  
  
The riot had begun slowly, as most do. First there was discord, grumbling, then infighting. Within an hour there was a plan of attack against the town they all blamed for their poverty, their plight, their aching backs. San Madre had withdrawn it's support from the sugar mill as a collective entity, as one body. The first reaction from management had been awe, it was something that had never been done so completely before. And then there was disgust and a vow to never take anyone from that town back into its good graces. But the mass exodus of those from San Madre had sent a splash of terror through the surrounding towns as well.  
Something was wrong. With first the sugar mill and then San Madre itself. Soon the outlying towns were whispering about how the Madrians didn't associate with anyone anymore. How they were having secret night ceremonies. How they were shipping in all manner of equipment from the capital. Were they planning revolution? War? Something, darker, more sinister? Women cast dried bones and men cut open chickens searching for an answer about San Madre. Younger men and woman who respected but didn't believe their parents ways, tried to insinuate themselves into the town, to spy but either find themselves rebuffed or that their co-spies had defected to San Madre without a word of explanation.  
That was when the word came to attack, to raze the town, to obliterate it. It was evil, yes? First it had destroyed the local economy that had been working so well (the cheapest labor for 100 miles) and now they were obviously Devil possessed. Far too easily two hundred men were assembled, some given weapons and others having arrived with malice in heart and hand. At ten that night the caravan of horses and cars and trucks, full of violent, angry, drunken men sped down the road only to come to screeching halt at the amazing sight ahead the glowing figures standing in the middle of the road.  
Chamber and Spike stood on either side of Nightcrawler, he radiating brilliantly from his chest, while Spike had manifested glowing protective armor with viciously looking spikes all around it.  
Ummmmmm, what if these men decide to bash our skulls in? Chamber asked.  
"I'm a doctor, Chamber, if they decide to bash our skulls in, I'll fix it.," Spike answered.  
"And if they bash your skull in?" Nightcrawler asked darkly.  
"Oh, I'm from the Bronx, there will be no skull bashing upon my beautiful coconut," Spike snapped.  
"The town is under our protection! Turn around and no one will get hurt!' Nightcrawler shouted to the men.  
  
Talisman, hovering hundreds of feet above, saw several flashes from the jungle below. They'd decided to intercept the rioters three miles outside of San Madre and she would keep an eye on both problems from above. The gunshots and screams became louder and finally she couldn't resist anymore, if her teammates were in danger she had to try and help. More of a floater/glider than flyer it took her a moment to orient her body to descend rapidly but once she did she came up a melee.  
Spike had formed the defensive point, expanding her energy field out to smashing through people and machines alike while Chamber used his psi blasts to take out half a dozen men at a time. Nightcrawler, almost faster than the eye could see, teleported through the crowd, disarming the artillery and striking strategically at tens of opponents at a time. She had to admit that they were doing an effective job, maintaining a tight formation and soon the gang would be gone until she felt the wave of evil from behind.  
Something had awoken.  
"Oh, shit," Talisman muttered and landed in the road facing San Madre, her hands feeling desperately through the fabric, the lattice of energy that all things had for some sort of idea of what was coming. It was more than the Brood. She knew that now. The aliens couldn't have stayed hidden under her mystical scans for so long. This was a greater threat than they had ever imagined.  
She dropped to her knees, having felt a stabbing pain in her mind and she saw a mental flash of Tran screaming in agony somewhere within the town.  
"Frenzy!" Talisman shrieked over her comm link. "Karma is in trouble! Help them!"  
"Where------? I'm at the hotel and ohmifuckinggod!!!!!" Frenzy screamed and then the comm link went dead.  
There was a loud bamfing sound and Nightcrawler was at Talisman's side. "Elizabeth, what is it?"  
"We have to get out of here, Kurt!" she screamed and the shadows from the jungle suddenly seemed to be all around her. Inside of her. Piercing deep into her heart. "They're coming!"  
Chamber was the next to sense it as it felt like the jungle around them had suddenly become. Become alive. Become hungry.  
Spike, using her psi-plasma field swiped back a dozen men gleefully until she noticed her teammates weren't with her. She turned and saw the first of the wave of aliens coming through the thicket of bush and trees. "Oh, this ain't good at all."  
Nightcrawler snatched up Talisman and vanished, reappearing next to Chamber and Spike who were in front of the gaping, terrified former rioters. "Elizabeth, get these men to safety! Chamber, Spike same formation at the Brood!"  
"I can't leave you here!" Talisman said, the consuming evil she felt from the flying Brood was more than anything she had felt before. These aliens had been changed by something in the town. They were more than just the Brood, their scales were a bloody red, their fangs jagged, as if they'd been crossed with something, something ancient and dark. But even within them, Talisman could sense human beings, human beings who relished this changed!  
"I can teleport the four of us out of here or you can move these people back while we stop the Brood. Five miles, ja?" he said to her, their contingency plan still in place.  
"Five miles," Talisman nodded fiercely then turned and faced the petrified rioters, the Brood a hundred meters away and closing in. The men were too petrified to even run. She whispered to the Wind, to get it's attention, she reminded it that she was the Promised One, she told it how far, how much and now, now, now! Talisman barely had time to let go of Nightcrawler's hand as a hurricane swept from around her ad slammed into the two hundred humans, hurtling them into the air. She rose with them, spinning wildly, her spells always abrupt and rather violent the larger her scope but she could see her teammates engaging the Brood. She focused on righting herself, on taming the wind around her as it was buffered around each living person in the hurricane so as to sweep them away but not snap them in two. Her limbs felt on fire, the Wind Elements draining at her very being to act so quickly. Magic was always an exchange, especially when done abruptly with so many specifics. She whirled around and saw her mystic wards that were within a five-mile radius of the town of San Madre, she'd spent the better part of twelve hours setting them up. As frightened wailing men were sent passing harmlessly through it, she saw it getting brighter and brighter until the thousand foot high dome of energy around the town could be seen visibly by everyone.  
It had been their last stopgap, containing the town itself when the Brood went berserk as they were doing now. She heard something behind her, a chattering of teeth, turned her head and a dozen winged Brood were speeding towards her. She was being pulled in too many different directions power wise. Her power while great wasn't infinite. In fact as soon as the men were safely on the other side of the force field the air abruptly dropped them, some from as high as twenty feet (whatever injuries they sustained were well deserved based upon their original intentions) but she couldn't spare the Wind, she needed it back with her, to push the Brood back.  
The aliens were relentless, tentacles grabbing her legs and arms as she focused on the Wind get her two hundred charges safely to the other side of what was now Hell to her before she even tried to fight them.  
"X-Men!" she cried out, searching desperately with her mind's eye for her teammates but all she got was a desperate struggle, life and death emotions from those nearest. Her field would hold, that she knew, so she called upon darker spirits, one's of death and decay and channeled them through her very flesh. She screamed as the vileness poured form her but it had the desired effect in repelling the Brood but soon a dozen more took their place, slamming their bodies into her, forcing her to sail towards the ground.  
Talisman knew that something was wrong when the trees and her very force field began to tremble. An earthquake? The Wind whispered to her that all of her charges had been delivered to the other side of the shield as requested and she pulled them around herself, to right herself in the air. The ground was shaking, trees were uprooting within her field.  
The very town itself was beginning to slowly ascend!  
The entire town had been the starship.  
Talisman saw her chance and took it, she thought of her shield as a contracting bubble, called for it to come in closer and at first by inches it did. Then feet. Then meters. She couldn't stop the town but she could make damn sure not a single Brood got accidentally left behind. She could feel her teammates terror, their resolve to finish this but she knew it was useless. They were too weak. The very sight of close to a thousand Brood flying towards her told Talisman that the rioters had distracted them, they should've done anything to simply have blown the town to bits.  
Her com link squawked several times and she realized it was German curses so she opened the mystical tether she'd tossed to him before, the connection much easier having been done before. Nightcrawler appeared next to her in the night sky, her winds holding him afloat. He was bruised and cut but still smiled resolutely. "Welcome to the X-Men, having fun yet?"  
Talisman would've laughed if it hadn't of been so dire. "Things got hairier in Alpha Flight. What's the plan, the shield will contain but we're stuck in here with them unless we rabbit. The town is rising slowly but I don't think it will stay that way for long. I can't promise how long I can keep my field up, I'm not exactly experienced in space travelling and my magicks are Earth based."  
"Call the others. We need them," Nightcrawler said almost regretfully, he had wanted to prove that his squad could handle a threat but they had walked into something larger than them.  
"Look!" Talisman said and pointed at Hunter's small Shi'ar ship outside of the field. He'd been parked outside of the five-mile radius of the field.  
"Good, he can ferry the others to us. Call them!" Nightcrawler said infaticly, the swarm of Brood within a thousand feet of them now. The shield growing smaller on one side, the town rising on the other and thousands of Brood coming closer on yet another front. Where was Phoenix when you truly needed her? Talisman nodded, reaching out with her mind to the one she knew would be with, the spirit she was most familiar with, as persnickety as he was. 


	6. Delicious Ascent

X-Men: Sanctuary Issue # 6 By Kyle Phoenix  
  
Madripoor,  
  
Military Detention Facility:  
  
Ten mutants, a mix of X-Men and allies sat around a large office, waiting impatiently as several high ranking generals discussed what was to be done with Sabine who was being watched on a closed circuit screen that observed her cell. "This couldn't have happened at a worse time," Northstar sighed, "they're obviously still shaken from the invasion by Khan. Only being X-Men ourselves keeps them being civil to us."  
  
Psyche looked at the generals who furtively glanced over then went back to their conversation in some Asian dialect. He was right. But if they wanted to rescue Warren, they needed their cooperation. "I don't envy Viper having to balance all of these disparate personalities as well as rebuilding a war torn country. The stress alone couldn't have happened to a nicer girl."  
  
"Still nothing on the psionic rapport?" Iceman asked worriedly, it had been almost four hours since Archangels' abduction and she glanced at Carlos Allegra, who sat calmly on a bench. His eyes flickered open and then he subtlety shook his head.  
  
"No, Bobby. We thought that maybe Carlos would be able to get through because of his abilities. But nothing. We do think that he's alive..we have a sense of that, as if we'd know if he were dead." "Ok, so we have to go on the concept that he is alive and that all of this was staged to bring the X-Men here, specifically this team since you were only a stones throw away in Tokyo," Shadowcat nodded.  
  
"You're saying that we blundered into this?" Psyche snapped.  
  
"It's happened to the best of us. When I was in the X-Men, it happened more than I like to remember. Where we thought one thing and got surprised in an entirely different way," Shadowcat shrugged neutrally. "At least she hasn't called us "X-Babies"," Magma sneered, no love lost between her and Kitty Pryde. The growing up competitive roles of which team to be on had caused a divide between Shadowcat and the New Mutants, even though they had been older than her.  
  
"My sword could try and track Archangel," Nemesis said out of the blue and she unsheathed it, holding it up. Several of the generals actually jumped and stepped farther across the room as if an attack had already begun. Nemesis ignored them and focused, shimmering yellow sparkles swirling around the sword. Finally she shook her head then admitted. "I'm sorry for getting everyone's hopes up. It could sense his soul, so yes, I concur he is alive but not his location."  
  
Shadowcat perked up. Soul? Sword? No, that was impossible. Her best friend Illyana Rasputin was dead and buried. It was just the slight shock she still felt whenever she looked at Peter and thought of his father and the fact that Nemesis wore a mask that covered her entire face. Not to mention the costume and cloak. She would be hard pressed to even guess her racial or cultural background from the tightly enunciated words the woman rarely spoke.  
  
Sabine is waiting. Playing chicken as it were, Carlos said telepathically to Psyche. He felt her pull back slightly from his mind's touch and he chuckled within, his neutral expression never changing across the room from her. Danielle, in order to access the power we needed, we are bound. When there is time I will explain exactly why. Until then-  
  
You're a Hellfire goon, I don't trust you.  
  
I am far from a goon, young woman.  
  
Ok. Lackey.  
  
This time she actually saw him grin slightly across the room.  
  
Half the fun of this rapport will be showing you things about myself and even yourself that you couldn't possibly comprehend. Back to Sabine, can you feel the calm from her? It? Sabine is no more a prisoner to those energy coils they have her locked up in than a bird in the sky.   
  
Sabine did aid the Marauders in several bank robberies and then killed them. She has to be punished by these people. I can see their reasoning in not wanting to give up a symbol of anarchy to us. Every mutant with the power of super sneezing would be razing the island in a week. They have to stay firm on Sabine, on holding her.  
  
I concur.  
  
But we can't wait any longer, can we?  
  
No, I feel not, my rapport with Worthington is new. An off ramp connected to the main highway of ours but if you'll let the metaphor stand, the cement of his road is crumbling to dust in front of my mind's eye. Whatever is being done to him is not killing him exactly but it is changing him.  
  
I know. I have this deep sense of revulsion. Almost like part of me is with him and appalled by what's going on.  
  
I think our problem with Worthington is deeper than that; the three of us are a triumvirate psychically until it is broken. Whatever depths he is pulled to, will send shockwaves through our minds as well. Like a tidal wave flowing along the off ramp of Warren in the opposite direction; we will get majorly soaked on our "road". Our lives are in peripheral danger to his.  
  
What can we do? If something happens to him?  
  
I will be frank, Danielle. I will not die because of him. I will sever our connection to him, minimize the psychic trauma. I fear though that you will be deeply hurt both emotionally and mentally by it, as you've been connected longer. I have.distance from the situation.  
  
Yes, I can see that clearly in your mind.  
  
"Jean-Paul, I just want to thank you for what you did for me back there. When I was hurt," Iceman said awkwardly to Northstar.  
  
"Emma Frost is correct, there is much to explore with your abilities that you have been remiss in doing. You are welcome though. But truly show your gratitude by becoming better. We need your full capabilities, not your weaknesses."  
  
"Hey, Jean-Paul, could you get the pole out of your ass for a second, I'm trying to be nice here," Iceman grunted.  
  
Northstar opened his mouth to snap back then shook his head. "I am sorry, Drake. I'm tired and frustrated. I am glad that my experiences with my sister, Aurora's identity issues, were able to help you."  
  
"Wow. Was that humanity peaking out from under that bitchy attitude?" Iceman grinned. "I mean bitchy purely as a shot at your sexuality."  
  
"Yes, Drake, even I have my weaknesses, such as giving a damn. I'm working on getting rid of it. So far it only tends to attract men who have identity issues," Northstar smiled thinly. "You must be worried about Warren, having been friends so long."  
  
"Ouch. Nice switch of topics from you to someone else. We'll shelve the therapy for later. Yeah, a lot has happened to him in just the past few months. Losing Psylocke, being put in charge of a team, then being hurt by Channel. I know you were possessed too but he has a lot of deeper issues with that from Apocalypse toying with him."  
  
"It wasn't pleasant but I can imagine that the violation was even more intense for someone who was so thoroughly altered before. He must be in Hell now."  
  
Warren was in Heaven.  
  
He'd never been so happy before, felt so alive, so in tune with himself.  
  
"How do you do that? Just by touching me?" he asked Meridian who was seated on a couch next to him.  
  
"I'm a mutant like you. But my power is power. I can copy and reproduce any mutant ability into another mutant. Or mutant potential. Which is how I "built" Sabine," she answered freely. "I can't use the powers much myself but the small ones, the tiny mutations like the touch of joy seems to be something I can do."  
  
"I can see why you guard your anonymity so viciously. There are dozens if not hundreds of people I can name off the bat who would kill to possess you," Warren nodded. While he felt the joy, he didn't feel like she was trying to control his mind or even influence his decision about what she had whispered to him.  
  
The curtains parted into the salon where they sat, no windows to indicate whether it was night or day and a slim woman entered. Warren was unsure at first then he made the connection.  
  
"Sabine?"  
  
"Yes," the slim brunette nodded.  
  
"She is a mutant. The one you see before you is the prime host to the others. The two your colleagues are with is but a facsimile. We need Sabine with us," Meridian explained.  
  
Warren was starting to feel uneasy, he had agreed to her plan because of what she knew about him but he wasn't sure that he could trust her not to have an ulterior agenda within even her own plans.  
  
"Again, Warren, you have my oath of safety. Sabine is merely a conduit, as I said before the power I will transfer to you, I cannot manipulate but I have invested Sabine with abilities to help you."  
  
"And what do you get out of this, Sabine?" Warren asked.  
  
"The pleasure of service to the future," Sabine answered then began to slowly unbutton her jacket and skirt. Meridian threw off her cloak revealing her lush nakedness.  
  
"I don't mean to sound crude, but the two of you could teach Magneto a thing about being super villains," Warren laughed as each woman slipped into an outstretched arm.  
  
"Not all power should be done in pain or malice. Pleasure, sex, passion are also viable ways of sharing," Meridian whispered and her mouth fell upon his, insistently.  
  
Carlos stumbled for a moment then looked across the room and Psyche was clutching a desk for support.  
  
"What's wrong, Chief?" Paulie asked.  
  
"Maybe her arms are still hurt?" Peter asked.  
  
"No, not pain. It's Warren. Something is being done to him. Something that is altering him," she said through gritted teeth. Her every fiber wanted to hiss in ecstasy, writhe in carnal pleasure and she could feel the same need from Carlos but there was no way to publicly explain this to the others.  
  
Nemesis lifted her sword again, "Whatever force was blocking me before is waning. It cannot do whatever is being done and block Warren from my sight any longer." "What's being done to him?" Shadowcat asked. "Contact Gateway...I'm starting to get a fix on him," Psyche said through gritted teeth and Carlos crossed the room in a quick stride and kept her standing with a firm grip on her arm. "Oh, God!" she muttered. She buried her face in Carlos' chest so that no one could see the unrestrained rapture on her face. "Sabine," he said to the others, sensing something happening and to cover Psyche's embarrassment. His mental distance from Worthington was allowing him a buffer from the intensity of the thrill but part of that was holding Danielle. He was using his attraction to her to distract from whatever pure sexual heat was flowing through their rapport. The X-Men looked at the monitors where sure enough the young woman was glowing fiercely. Nemesis shook her head then waved her sword through the air. "We've been fools. Sabine was not left behind to kill us but to act as a block to prevent us from tracking Warren. He's not being blocked at his end, Sabine is enveloping us in some sort of neutral field from here!"  
  
"Kitty! Jean-Paul!" Psyche said firmly, Carlos's touch, his very presence seemed to renew her psychic wall, to give her the strength to focus beyond Warren's overwhelming psychic waves. She was secretly amazed at how much deeper her connection to Carlos was in such a short period of time. "On it," Shadowcat grinned and had but a second to turn and then she was in Northstar's arms, hurtling towards the floor and walls, and phasing through effortlessly like mercurial ghosts.  
  
"They sure have got that trick down pat, huh?" Iceman smirked and they all watched the monitor as the two X-Men sped through Sabine's cell walls, grabbed hold of Sabine and then sped out of the cell, the only indication of their exit, seconds later when an audible sonic boom was heard over the base.  
  
"Kitty's phasing must keep her safe from the rigors of such fast travel," Paulie theorized. "Xavier is gonna flip his hair to hear about that power trick. His files are full of notes on everyone's possibilities." "I have him!" Nemesis said and her sword pointed due east.  
  
Madripoor, Low Town,  
  
Amongst the rag tag shacks and low-income tenements and dive bars back hall gambling dens and brothels, there was a small warehouse that had been copiously renovated several months ago. No one knew what the product in or out was, but it was Madripoor, post-war at that, so no one dared to pay attention. The windows had been painted black, the doors reinforced with padlocks and metal covers and armed guards sat attentively around the perimeter twenty-four hours a day.  
Drugs, weapons, nuclear material, no one knew for sure but the speculation had come and gone quickly as things of a suspicious nature were want to in Madripoor.  
"I mark twelve guards."  
"Copy that."  
"Fast and furious, no mercy, guys, we know what could be in there," Psyche said over her comm link and a moment later the X-Men sprung into action. Shadowcat phased up through the concrete and snatched two guards back through it, not giving them enough time to take a deep breath so that they passed out from the lack of oxygen and fright in a minute. Northstar sped by, snatching up two more, disarming them, destroying their walkie talkies and leaving them five miles away on the coast before they even had a chance to register what had happened. Carlos came walking out of the night fog, his coat rustling and violently whipping through the air, distracting the two men who were about to raise their weapons when they felt the press upon their minds and lost consciousness. Two others squawked and vomited as their brains seized from iron deposits, under the Peter's skillful manipulation. Two more guards fell unconscious, their insides sapped of moisture so quickly that they collapsed from Iceman's vicious attack. Nemesis fluttered down from the sky and stabbed the remaining two guards with her sword, no blood drawn but an electrical shock rendering them both insensate.  
The crack of the sonic boom above signaled that the next phase had begun and a moment later, Paulie, propelled by Northstar, came rocketing through the sky and smashed through the roof. The ground below simultaneously trembling as Magma and Psyche burst forth from the ground within an earthen cocoon.  
The rest of the X-Men came in through the other doors to find them selves in a vast salon. Pillows cast about, in the center of the warehouse a circular bed at least twenty feet in circumference, Warren strewn unconscious on it. As they cautiously stepped closer they could all see that his feathers were scattered along the plush carpeted floor. Stepping even closer, they saw larger clumps far from his back on parts of the mattress. The smell, of sweat and passion expended, wreaked from him and the bed.  
Psyche leaned down by the bed, her psi senses reaching out to Warren and finding him asleep, his mind lost to a pleasurable haze.  
"It looks like a scene from Caligula," Northstar murmured.  
"Yo, it smells like a scene from Debbie Does Dallas!" Paulie grunted.  
"What did they do to him?" Peter asked.  
"My, my, they didn't mention sex in the Beyond?" Magma chuckled then stopped when a sharp glance from Psyche shot her way.  
"We have a serious problem here," Carlos said, he was at the other side of the bed carefully examining both it and Warren.  
Psyche had clamped down hard on the psi rapport they shared, almost as hard as she'd made her face. She was torn between rage, pain and a dark jealousy that she didn't even like the thought of having. "What? What's the problem?"  
"His wings. Look," Carlos said and gently moved Warren who began mumbling incoherently, it was obvious from his bare back that the feathers all over had once been his. But under him the skeletal structure of the wings lay separate.  
"Holy shit!" Iceman gasped.  
"My God!" Shadowcat said, putting her hands to her mouth, she and Iceman had been there twice before when Warren's wings had been badly damaged.  
"They fucked his wings off!" Paulie surmised and for once no one chastised him because bluntly, he was right.  
  
San Madre, Above South America:  
  
Talisman had never extended her powers this far before. In the past hour the small town had risen almost ten thousand feet and was gaining speed. At first she'd thought it was the size that was preventing the town, now island, from actually achieving orbit then she'd realized it was her force field. Though it had collapsed to being only a hundred feet wider than the three mile circumference of the town, it was still fundamentally attached to the Earth mystically. She hadn't realized when she'd cast the spell that was a part of her anchoring and she was paying for it. Several times she'd choked up blood and her vision was blurring but she refused at the very core of her being to allow the Brood to get away with kidnapping five thousand innocent human beings.  
In rage several times she'd called for more and more mystical power, more and more Spirits to aid her. She commanded it as the Chosen One, as the One spoken of before there was language. She didn't give a damn what these aliens wanted or thought they deserved, she would hold this town within Earth's atmosphere until reinforcements arrived or die trying.  
  
"I never imagined she was so powerful," Spike said to Chamber and Nightcrawler. The three of them had taken refuge from the fight on the steeple of the local church. The best place to flee from if and when Talisman's bubble burst. The Brood horde seemed content to go back underground somewhere, presumably Frenzy and Karma their prisoners as they prepared to launch into space.  
I don't think she did either, Chamber replied. I get psychic impressions of her. Awe. Strength. Fear. She acts older and self- possessed because of the spirits she's in contact with but she's barely into her twenties and she can literally hear the world.  
Hundreds of feet above them Talisman was glowing like a star, tendrils of energy visibly spiraling out from her to her force field and a long tendril to the Earth itself. Outside of the field they could still see Hunter's scout ship following them, ready to assist, as well as several military jets cruising by, bewildered as to what to do.  
"She sent the call to the other X-Men, but I don't know why they haven't responded yet," Nightcrawler said.  
"Ummmm, maybe because we're no longer where they would be looking for us at?" Spike laughed mirthlessly.  
I don't think anyone will have a hard time finding us, Chamber laughed. I bet we make CNN again.  
"We're X-Men, we always make CNN!" Nightcrawler added, their humor in the face of such danger almost giddy. He realized that they might soon be getting low on oxygen. His plan was to teleport them to Hunter's ship but he was loathe to leave without Frenzy and Karma. "Are you sure they're still alive? Johanna and Shan?" he asked.  
Chamber nodded frantically. With everyone else gone all Brood, I can clearly sense them both. Alive and conscious. Somewhere below in the thick of the Brood. Remember they have the resin on them, they could hide in plain sight with the image inducer Frenzy had. I've been trying to mentally reach either of them but the Brood and Talisman's magicks are causing more static than my little bit of telepathy can pierce.  
"Kurt, I don't want to leave them either but what choice do we have?" Spike said. "Liz can't hold us here for too much longer against a star drive trying to blast off."  
"Perhaps we can still accomplish our original intent!" Nightcrawler said with a bright smile and vanished in a burst of brimstone.  
"Oh, great, now our ride has left!" Spike grumbled.  
  
Frenzy had been lying on her small hotel bed, waiting for Nightcrawler to appear when Tran came through the wall, screaming, his astral body cut in several places. He'd collapsed to the ground and immediately shifted back to Shan who was unhurt.  
"What happened?" Frenzy asked.  
"The Brood. They attacked us and seemed to be able to injure Tran. He got us away but something is happening----!" that was when the ground had begun to tremble and then shake violently and the small town had ripped free of the Earth, rising steadily.  
The door had shattered an instant later and Brood had flocked into the small room. Frenzy didn't hesitate as she snatched up the single metal framed bed and used it as a stop gap, sending several of the Brood back through the doorway. With her other hand she'd grabbed up Karma and the two of them had gone smashing through the wall. The leap three stories down had been nothing compared in terms of a shock to Shan. The sight of hundreds of Brood coming out of buildings and then fixing on them, that was shocking. Thinking quickly, Frenzy flicked on her image inducer. She'd reprogrammed it in her down time especially for a moment like this, the image of a flash of teleportation. Within that instant, she'd grabbed Karma and run into another building, the image truly being cast over them a reflective chameleon effect of the surroundings then another switching to cover them in the illusion of being Brood.  
Even Frenzy was impressed by what she'd been able to push the Shi'ar enhanced technology to do in a pinch. Being such a physically large woman people often expected that her sole abilities lie in strength and brown but Frenzy had studied both technical and clandestine arts to survive the past few years as a renegade mutant.  
That escape had been over three hours ago, and they were still huddled in the attic of an abandoned house. As far as they could tell the Brood had all gone and gathered somewhere when the town began to lift off.  
  
"We won't leave you, Johanna," Shan promised. "Tran and I are agreed on that."  
"Thanks but you might have to. This place taking off like this means the others have failed, we'll need someone to go for help and you're the best suited," Frenzy chuckled, watching the town lift meter by meter from the Earth from the small window of the attic. She could make out the barest shimmering of what must've been Talisman's force field but it was obvious that they were picking up speed. Occasionally several military jets would sail past the force field, making idle threats, she was sure. Her experience with the military was that they threatened but couldn't do much, especially when paranormals were involved.  
"Do you hear that humming?" Shan asked and Frenzy shook her head. "I think its mental then, the Brood are up to something. Something bad. I feel this compulsion, almost like possession to go to the middle of town."  
  
If she hadn't seen a thousand unspeakable things, Talisman would've been shocked at what was literally bubbling up from the town center. Hundreds of Brood bodies, spiraling upwards with two figures astride. Two figures in white robes.  
"I am the Holy Mother," the thin white woman said calmly to Talisman, hundreds of feet above the ground, standing literally on the backs of hundreds of alien monsters.  
"I am the Mother," the male figure said almost in unison.  
"No offense but amongst other problems, you have gender issues," Talisman smirked. She needed to say something to take her mystical senses off of the sheer radiance of their power. To her eyes they were like ever wattage-increasing light bulbs, though it was apparent they were draining the energy from the townspeople below that had been transformed into Brood.  
"You are a humorous young woman. Powerful as well. I have come to ask you to remove your barrier so that we may bring our Holy Mission to those of our kind who have been lead astray by the Brood Queen," the woman smiled politely, making the whole exchange even more surreal.  
"I'd love to, Holy Mother, but those people you're draining for power are Earthlings, not Brood. You free them, I'll help boot you directly to the Brood Queen. Until then, they do not leave. I will not allow you to kidnap people for batteries!" Talisman vowed, realizing that part of her voice was resonating with power. Almost as if the very spirits she commanded were voicing their disgust at the Brood. Was she in some way not only mistress but a conduit for the spirits of....everything?  
"We can crumble this shield," the male warned but Talisman could see almost a trickle of fear in his words. He was human. More human than his female counterpart she was sure. Something about him suggested that he wasn't as dangerous as the woman he had aligned himself with.  
"I can rain death and destruction down on you. Hard or easy. How we do this is up to you," Talisman said fiercely, whispering several spells at once, her hands erupting with eldritch energy.  
The female Holy Mother's eyes focused on Talisman again. Taking her measure then she beamed a glorious, imperial smile and viciously spat out.  
  
"Hard."  
An instant later both figures were consumed back into the Brood column and vanished.  
Talisman braced herself for the column of Brood to attack but they simply slowly receded back towards the floating town and then she sensed the power build up. To the naked eye it looked like the town center was exploding but to her she saw the coruscating force bound for her shield.  
No, not her shield.  
Her.  
"X-MEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Talisman screamed in terror.  
  
Sanctuary, Australia:  
  
In a brilliant flash of light, the X-Men came out of Gateway's portal from Madripoor and back onto the cliff that overlooked the Sanctuary base. Carlos helped a groggy Warren stand, covered in the Black Bishop's long coat. The team was both grim and silent. A second battle inconclusive, with one of their own changed.  
"Ok, it's too friggin' hot here!" Paulie groaned as he shielded his eyes and looked down at the base.  
"I second our resident diplomat's opinion," Bobby joked nervously, he'd been trying to keep his eyes off of Warren, who he was worried about. He could see that Dani was upset too though probably for a host of different reasons.  
Danielle? Carlos pressed telepathically.  
I don't want to talk about anything. To anyone.  
Leave her alone, Carlos, Warren replied wearily.  
If she would take a moment to look at your memories, she would see that you were coerced by a high-end telepath.  
You can see my memories. Wonderful. Even I'm having a hard time remembering what happened since the fight with the Marauders. And as for Dani, she likes having an iron lip, she's not interested in the truth.  
Great Spirits! Will I never have a moment of mental peace again? Hell is obviously having two men with a psi link to!  
I didn't ask for this rapport either, Danielle.  
I do not like the rapport with either of you. In fact, I'm not liking either of you at the moment. So get the hell out of my head! Dani raged and then slammed shut her psi barriers.  
Warren sighed and psi spoke to Carlos. Thank you, Carlos. For trying to help. For helping the X-Men. I wasn't very kind to you in the beginning. However you got sucked into this rapport, it's letting me see you too. See that your intentions aren't as dark as I'd originally pegged you for.  
Understood, Warren. I am a member, willingly, of a group you have only encountered as enemies. And this rapport...it was an inadvertent battlefield co-joining. I did not realize that my..abilities would act in such a way.  
Testing the boundaries, looking deeper into his compatriot, Warren found something. The Beast? What is that? I keep getting vague impressions of concern from Dani about it. And there's something at the end of our rapport, the edges, like down a hallway that you won't let either her or I see. Exactly what the heck is in you, Carlos?  
It is a burden that I never thought I would willingly be able to share with others. I must meditate on what I am to do; my purpose has shifted radically from being Lady Amara's guard to having a vested interest in your X-Men.  
You seem more worried about that than the fact that we have a decidedly intimate trois going on here, Warren laughed.  
Danielle is young and not as worldly as you and I. From some of your memories I can see that you have tasted of multiple fruits at once as well. I would think that you would be much more upset at the loss of your wings? Carlos shared several images and memories of nights spent in the arms of more than one lover at a time, the ability to lose one's self to passion. Between the two men, both men of privilege, there was an understanding that pleasure came in many forms, forms that those not born into and raised in luxury had never experienced the decadence of.  
At the thought of his wings, Warren felt a supreme ambivalence. He'd been injured before, hurt and had the appendages amputated, plunging him into a suicidal depression. In fact he had committed suicide over the loss of them at one point. But now, the weight noticeably gone from his back, the gentle rustle of the wings along his body, the secure knowledge that he could take afloat at any moment didn't dispirit him. In fact he felt like he'd done something incredible, something beyond noble and the price had been his wings. But somewhere within those hazy memories he felt like he'd been keenly aware of making a trade, of gaining far more than he had lost. His thoughts to Carlos were measured, but the emotional feeling of serenity behind them was evident.  
I am and I'm not. I'm not sure if it's leftover effect from Meridian's power but I remember her saying that it was an exchange. An exchange for something greater. It's like a drunken dream. Bits and pieces floating in and out.  
We need Danielle to help us sort through your memories. Together we can do it. However she needs to separate her feelings about your sexual entanglement with Meridian and the other Sabine. And of course the fact that you thoroughly enjoyed it.  
Both men laughed darkly within their rapport, smiles creeping onto their faces.  
  
"I find the heat to be glorious!" Amara laughed. "I wish you could all feel the purity of the earth here. The strength in it!" She twirled around, flames licking her body and a lava geyser lifted her a hundred feet into the air so that she could survey the land.  
"Thank God she's not a show-off," Paulie grinned up at Amara.  
"If you'll excuse me, I have to go to my quarters," Nemesis said curtly, nodded and then was airborne heading towards the far side of the town.  
"Social thing, ain't she?" Kitty grumbled.  
"She's always been rather standoffish. Having a hideous appearance under that mask tends to do that to a woman," Northstar answered.  
"Wow, so she never takes her mask off?" Peter asked.  
"No. But though an odd addition, I expect she'll make a valuable one to the team."  
"How about you, Jean-Paul? I haven't seen you and Liz since that shindig with Loki in Canada, remember?" Kitty asked.  
"Yes, yes, I do. You've certainly grown and matured since then. I almost didn't recognize you," Jean-Paul admitted, the young woman he'd met before had dressed so seriously but this one had a blazen, almost daring attitude. He wasn't sure if it was just her being a young adult in full bloom or who Kitty had ben growing to be inside.  
"I'd recognize you in the dark with a bag over my head!" Paulie chuckled and Kitty rolled her eyes at him.  
"Every team needs a leech," Bobby said and jabbed a thumb at Paulie.  
Northstar suddenly froze in place.  
"Are you okay, Northstar?" Peter asked to no response. "Is being perfectly still one of his super powers?"  
"No, it's not," Kitty said waving her hand in front of his face but Jean Paul didn't even blink.  
Behind them they heard the tell tale crack of Gateway's bola swinging and when they looked back, the silent Aborigine seemed as surprised as they were that his bola was twirling of it's own accord.  
"X-MEN!!!" an image of Talisman burst from out of Northstar's face and from her mouth shot energy tentacles of light into each one of them, no matter how near or far.  
"Talisman! What's going on?!" Danielle shouted as she saw Magma and Nemesis being yanked from hundreds of feet away towards Gateway's portal.  
"X-MEN!!!!"  
"Guess it's not a two way line, huh!" Paulie grimaced as they were all dragged towards Northstar who was flying into Gateway's portal. A moment later all of the X-Men were gone.  
"Welcome, X-Men!" Alex said as he made his way to the top of the ridge holding several bottles of champagne. He looked around in bewilderment at the visibly trembling Gateway and the distinct lack of X- men. "IT?"  
"Yes, Alex? They were here but it seems that they left rather abruptly. I can replay the monitors to show exactly what happened," the intelligent hologram appeared and answered politely.  
"That would be best, I suppose," Alex mumbled. "Now I know how the Avengers' Jarvis feels."  
"You don't look like the kind of man who has ever served," a silky feminine voice whispered and then in a flash of light, Emma Frost appeared from a portal Gateway had opened.  
"I was expecting Xavier," Alex said bluntly.  
"And I was hoping to be taller but alas, we must all deal with what we have in life," Emma sighed. She stood seductively in a thin white strapless dress, camisole and beach hat blowing in the wind. "It is dreadfully hot out here, Monsieur Rosten. Let's go inside the facility that I'm to be reviewing and I'm sure by the time the X-men return, we'll be as good as old friends."  
"Your reputation precedes you, Ms. Frost. I doubt we'll ever be old friends," he said coolly, a little taken aback by the disappearance of the X-Men and Emma's obvious lack of concern.  
"Then let's work hard to make you are one of the few to have survived an encounter with me?' she retorted sharply. "Is that Cristal?"  
  
San Madre, Argentina:  
  
At first they were a little shocked at the sound, the high pitched scream, reminiscent of Banshee in a high falsetto. Then they realized it was Paulie. Appearing several thousand feet above a floating town was normal for several of them but it was his first time. Hence, the screaming.  
Iceman acted immediately, firing a blast of ice around him and at the flying town to attach to, with that, he disappeared at one end and reformed his body at the other. Northstar blinked rapidly, his catatonia gone, saw what had happened, sighed and then speedily plucked his teammates out of the sky one by one and deposited Psyche, Warren, Carlos, Magma, Kitty, Peter and Paulie on the island in groups as Nemesis sailed under her own power.  
"Ok, a floating island," Psyche snapped and then they all stumbled as the island ascended even faster. "Now what? Where is Talisman and the other X-Men?"  
"The town itself is falling apart as well; we'll get no protection there!" Northstar shouted, having made a quick circling of the flying mass, over the harsh winds that were ripping along the edge of the island.  
"We should go away from the edge, into the bush, we'll get better protection there," Warren ordered though falling wasn't his main concern. He'd noticed how thin the air felt and how chilled he was through his insulated costume. He wasn't quite sure how high up they were but soon the air pressure, lack of oxygen and cold would do them in.  
"You said you saw a town, Northstar? We should make our way through the jungle towards it. If we can't find anyone there then we'll have no choice but to leave," Psyche hollered and waved her arms for them to follow. "How dangerous could a floating town be?"  
As they parted the brush, a thousand Brood hissed, teeth bared and crashed into them.  
"Oooh, I know, I know!" Paulie said sarcastically.  
Magma panicked, shrieking in rage, firing lava bolts directly into the throng but the heat and fire caused the Brood to disperse and not press the weight of their numbers upon the team. Iceman thought fast and expanded his form into a barricade between himself and as many of the Brood as possible, though dozens still got through. Nemesis didn't hesitate to cut a swath through the aliens, standing steadfast in front of Peter, Warren and Carlos to protect them from the throng, all three men fighting the horde with their bare hands against the few aliens that got past her.  
"I hope you have a good idea here," Shadowcat said, her hand firmly grasping Psyche's so that the attacking Brood harmlessly passed through them.  
"The way Northstar acted I would say that it was Talisman that brought us here because she was in deep shit. I'm getting a big sense of a lot of magic at work here. Not just hers either, the Brood have cast some sort of spell," Psyche said.  
"And this whole island is metal!" Peter yelled. "I can feel it permeating everything. New metal. Strong metal."  
"I'm thinking this is a ship and they're heading home," Warren said as they moved closer to Shadowcat and Psyche, he was bruised and cut from the fight and for an instant he felt a mental concern from Psyche. Then she shut down their psi rapport firmly again.  
"They're backing off now," Paulie said as they came closer to the edge of the island where they'd begun. "Seems like they don't want us getting any closer to their precious town."  
"Which suggests a hive mentality or an individual controlling them all," Northstar agreed as he observed form above. Even if he flew closer, the Brood took to the air threateningly.  
"This doesn't conform to Brood logic as a ship," Kitty said shaking her head. "They're parasites. They would leech onto something to get back home. Peter, can you sense energy around the metal or the shape of the overall shape of the metal?"  
Peter closed his eyes and seemed to strain for a moment then spoke. "Circular. Intertwined with cables. It's through the circumference of the town. They dug trenches I think to lay it into the ground. It was lots of pieces. There are also lots of fiber optics within the metal, conduits to several power sources."  
"Also as we're rising, we're tilting. I may not have my wings anymore more but I can feel spatial shifts still," Warren added.  
"Tilting?" Paulie smirked.  
"Tilting?" Shadowcat gasped. "Holy shit! We have a serious problem here! I think I know what they're doing, guys!"  
"Is that so, child? What could you possibly know about anything?" Holy Mother asked as she came riding towards the X-Men on a wave of writhing, screeching Brood bodies. "We are immortal! We are transcendent! We are infinite!"  
"You are a royal pain in the ass!" Talisman raged, soaring up onto the edge of the island, firing eldritch bolts at the approaching horde, her costume was torn and singed in several places and she had visibly been physically beaten. "Sorry, that I wasn't present when you guys arrived but this bitch blasted me a good one! It's payback time. Short story: Brood have taken over five thousand people. They want to take their bodies into space as Brood. I refuse to let that happen. The other X-Men in town were trying to disable their star drive. Disseminate and jump in!"  
With that Talisman tackled Holy Mother and the two of them went tumbling through the air away from the X-Men. For a moment the throng of Brood soldiers hesitated then scurried back into the jungle, leaving the X- Men and following Holy Mother.  
"There is no star drive. This is a Stargate!" Shadowcat corrected frantically. "They're just going to beam themselves home. And I have no idea what such a massive gate will do to the atmosphere around us much less this chunk of land or even the earth itself."  
Warrens shook his head angrily, determined to solve at least one problem that the Sanctuary team encountered. "I've been through a Stargate before but it was much smaller, maybe twelve feet in circumference. This is miles. They're crazy! Ok, first order of business is to find Kurt's squad. Magma, Nemesis, find and back up Talisman. The rest of us will head towards the buildings in the town center."  
"We have another problem, Archangel," Northstar pointed at the approaching military jets. "They're coming in on an attack vector to fire missiles!"  
"Shadowcat and Northstar, take those missiles out, then get back here, we'll need Kitty's know how to disable this Stargate!" Psyche ordered.  
"Done," Northstar said, snatching Shadowcat up into the air. "It seems as if we have developed quite the power stunt, you and I."  
"Not many people seem to be used to not breathing as I am!" Shadowcat chuckled mirthlessly.  
"That was very astute of you, figuring out the Stargate. This team could use someone of your expertise and level-headedness. Lord knows I can't keep being the voice of reason."  
"No ego there. And I'm not sure I want to be in the superhero game," she admitted. "I just found Peter's son and we got swept up in Madripoor and the Marauders. There was no intention to get back into the game there."  
"The way you look at him suggests that you'll stick around for awhile. I'm sure he's found what he's looking for in the X-Men," Northstar observed as they cleared Talisman's energy field and headed towards the circling jets.  
"Way I look at him-----?" if her face weren't already red from sheer adrenaline she would've hidden the redness of it with her hands. Someone had noticed.  
"I see things that move at imperceptible speeds. Body reactions. Glances. Handy in a nightclub but I can usually pick up on a person's "tells" in a few seconds. You're torn between mother-henning him and seducing the past."  
"I really don't think-----," she gulped; they had crossed nearly three miles of airspace in less than a minute and were approaching the fighter jets.  
"No, Kitty, you do think. As much as I loathe the suggestion and will seriously harm you if you repeat this, I've known you quite some time. Go for Paulie. At the very least you'll have fun, at the most you'll have the honor of turning him into a real man. Any ideas on how to disable their missiles?"  
"Hold your breath, that will shut you up for a minute, I hope. Then fly directly at them. I phase us. We phase through the missiles. Missiles go kaput. Simple. Maybe then we'll do a little chatting on who you've been watching and lusting after."  
"Elegantly so," Northstar agreed, chuckling and doubled his speed as he felt his body go intangible.  
  
Psyche, Warren, Carlos, Peter and Iceman came running into the town center, several dozen Brood trailing conspicuously behind them but reticent to attack the closer they got to town. They were visibly torn between following the prey and going back to help the Holy Mother.  
"We need to get a bead on our teammates! Carlos, can you help with that?" Warren said, backing slowly into the town that was in shambles.  
"Ummmm, excuse me....?" Peter tried to interrupt.  
"No, my empathic senses are being dulled by the static the Brood are creating. They are more than just biological now, I believe that this Holy Mother person is entirely mystical in nature, almost a focal point of mystical energy," Carlos said, not mentioning how he was marshalling all of his psychic strength to block the rapport with Psyche and Warren for fear they would feel his Beast. The Beast not only wanted out, it wanted to join the Brood in carnage.  
"We have to find the others! Kurt would've gathered a lot more information, perhaps even the way to overcome them," Psyche said.  
"Excuse me?" Peter started and was cut off.  
"At the rate we're rising the option of trashing the island or finding the others is whittling down. One or the other, people."  
"We can't have come here to kill the others!" Warren said in frustration.  
"Hey! Everyone!" Peter said calmly. "I have them."  
"What? How?" Psyche said shocked.  
"Your comm link things. Isn't that what they're for?" Peter smiled. "I contacted them a minute ago and gave them our location."  
A moment later there was a familiar burst of brimstone and Nightcrawler appeared holding Chamber and Spike. "It is such a joy to see you though I fear the situation is out of hand! Mein gott!" Nightcrawler gasped looking at Peter.  
"He's Peter's son, we'll explain later," Psyche said. "Where are Karma and Frenzy?"  
Nightcrawler visibly hesitated for a moment, still transfixed by Peter who looked so much like his father. Then he turned back to his teammates intent gazes. "We've reasoned out through Chamber's telepathic senses that the Brood are in some sort of mental communion with the Holy Mother to attain a form of telekinesis. She's bonded the humans to the Brood through magic and then taught them how to focus this mental ability to lift the town."  
"Kitty theorized that this is a Stargate," Warren added. "That they aren't going to fly back to their world just teleport."  
"Kitty's here?" Nightcrawler said with a grin.  
"Yes, she's the one I contacted when I got back from the Beyond," Peter offered.  
"I'm sorry for staring, Peter. You look so much like your father and he was a cherished friend," Nightcrawler explained.  
"So we have to destroy the island?" Spike asked. "We could just teleport off and let the military blow it to hell."  
"That would leave thousands of Brood to rain down upon the world," Carlos reasoned.  
"And you would be?" Spike asked.  
"Carlos Allegra, my dear lady, the Black Bishop of the Hellfire Club," he said and gently kissed her hand. "I am the Red Queen of the Lord Cardinals, Lady Amara's, bodyguard of sorts, therefore an ally to the X- Men."  
Red Queen? Chamber asked. Hellfire Club?  
"Magma joined the Hellfire Club," Psyche informed them.  
"Mein gott!" Nightcrawler gasped again, he'd been so distracted by the new Peter Rasputin that it took him time to register what he wasn't seeing any longer. "Warren, you have no wings!"  
Warren nodded grimly. "Again another story. I'm fine though. I'll be fine."  
"Any more 'mein gotts' or can we get down to business?" Psyche asked sarcastically.  
"Less than a week and they've got major drama going on!" Spike chuckled.  
"You don't know the half of it," Psyche grunted darkly.  
"Ok, we can't attack the Brood directly because if we do, they could both slaughter us and or drop the island," Warren said looking around at the sluggish Brood who seemed to be more and more dazed the closer they got to town. "Our first priority then is locating Shan and Frenzy. Then we'll get off of this island and figure a way to obliterate it completely."  
"And the innocent people the Brood took over," Iceman reminded.  
"Dead, Bobby. We have to accept that. We don't have anyway to alter the transformation and the longer that we think of them as human, the longer we'll hesitate and endanger ourselves and the world below," Warren corrected.  
"Air is getting thinner, guys. We don't have much time. At this rate of ascension maybe an hour or two and then we'll start to pass out," Spike said.  
  
Talisman had been in half a dozen mystical fights before. Serious ones. Where the world was at stake but she had never fought someone with as much sheer ferocity as Holy Mother. The witch hurled eldritch bolt after eldritch bolt, never giving her a chance to do anything but erect mystical shields, to dodge the latest onslaught but not completely, thoroughly retaliate. Not that Talisman thought she could, she was being deeply drained by the energy bubble around the island, maintaining it, strengthening it was such a large scale project. She knew logically that magick had no "scale" to it, that in fact on some level she was the one causing the exhaustion because she saw the field as large versus it just being but she was still young, still inexperienced on how to perceive even her own spells. So much of her powers were instinctive, unrefined, wasn't that why she'd accepted Xavier's offer, to gather further training?  
"You are strong, Indian, but my magicks are from the Stars! You will release my portal or I will crush you!" Holy Mother hissed and a blast of lava from Magma caused her to scream out and fling energy at the molten woman.  
"You'll spend your time killing quite a few of us should you try to harm Elizabeth again, monster!" Magma roared dodging the eldritch assault.  
"Taste my blade, witch!" Nemesis said soaring from above and slashing viciously at Holy Mother who screamed and batted her away.  
Talisman focused on another spell, a spell to destroy this woman when she was struck from behind by another eldritch attack that came from the male version of Holy Mother. He was silent this time but there were hundreds of Brood following behind him. The bolt hadn't hurt her deeply but the threat was there, the Brood could consume her and right now she knew she was the only force keeping them on Earth, giving the humans trapped within some semblance of hope. She would not falter.  
Magma saw the danger, but there was little she could do to help her teammates, her powers linked to the Earth required it to regenerate her powers, they were simply too high, over ten thousand feet she was sure. Other than flames and lava bolts she didn't have access to her greater earthen power lest she destroy the island itself to draw its power into her. She had very little choice, she began to draw on the small island's power, miniscule but replenishing all the same.  
Both Holy Mother's reacted immediately, screaming at her and diving towards her to attack. "Kill the fiery one, she tries to destroy our land!"  
Magma grinned darkly as the two figures and a sky full of Brood came towards her, exactly as she'd hoped they would. Her arms opened like an embrace and the earth at her feet swept up around her attackers, creating a rock barrier behind them and then Magma gladly released all the lava and heat she could from her body into the trapped horde.  
Talisman saw her teammate's plan and lent her power to reinforce the earthen trap as Nemesis soared back and forth mercilessly slaying the Brood that tried to escape the impromptu oven.  
  
"We have to break this spell somehow," Shadowcat said to Northstar as the two of them flew back towards the island. They had disabled dozens of missiles but it was clear that several nations were sending attack forces at the island which had begun to speed up as it ascended even faster than it had been in the few minutes they'd been present. Below them they could make out the Atlantic Ocean, the isle having cleared the South American coastline.  
"Wouldn't that be Talisman's area of expertise?" Northstar grimaced.  
"There's also a scientific element going on here. Head for the edges of the island, I'll phase us through and we'll disable parts of the Stargate hopefully."  
"Agreed, but take a look over there! Isn't that a Shi'ar scout ship?"  
Kitty saw the small ship, that looked almost like a metallic house fly with bulbous eyes and antenna. She would recognize the Shi'ar design anywhere. It was a scout ship capable of sustaining at least twenty people but it was holding back, waiting, probably for a signal on what to do. Though she wasn't sure who exactly was inside piloting it, she knew that the enmity with the Brood made them an ally, even if they were still sore about Cassandra Nova's rampage. Kitty felt a rush of both excitement and computations, strategies running through her head. The X-Men's chances had just dramatically increased. "It is! Maybe one of them came to warn us about the Brood. At least we now have a viable way to get our team off of the island when we destroy it."  
  
Brooklyn, New York:  
  
Eddie was in trouble. That was clear enough. The fact that he was sole responsible for brining about that trouble was something he couldn't think about right then. He had to trade something of value to stay alive. And for all of his years of scampering to have things of value: cash, gold, cars, women, these two were no interested in any of them.  
"What about Paulie?" the shadowed man answered. "Word is he's a mutie. Invulnerable. That could be useful to my boss."  
"Provenzano? He's running around in tights with them whackos the X- men last I heard."  
"You've got one week to produce him to receive an offer from the boss or else we start taking you apart, Eddie. First your operation then your body."  
"One week. Understood."  
  
San Madre, Currently over the Atlantic Ocean:  
  
"I can feel it powering up. I can feel it!" Peter shouted, his eyes glowing with power as he kneeled on the ground, en rapport with the Stargate itself.  
"Ok, is it just me or is every in this team getting an orgasm shot from their powers except for me?" Paulie muttered.  
"Is this wise, Warren? He's untested. His powers new to him," Nightcrawler said, concern etching his cerulean features.  
"What choice do we have?" Warren replied though he was filled with the same skepticism.  
Psyche pointed to the sky. "Looks like someone doesn't like our new plan!"  
Holy Mother, the female, her robes in tatters, trailed by Talisman and Nemesis was making a beeline for them. "Do not interfere, mutant!"  
"Everyone, protect Peter. Peter, rip that freaking Stargate to bits!" Psyche said, manifesting her psi bow and arrows and letting them fly at the woman.  
"She's doing something to the Stargate!" Peter screamed and his entire body seemed to irradiate with first energy and then his flesh began fluxuating between the organic and the metallic, almost a coruscating effect that resembled how his father went from flesh to metal. Yet where Colossus' had ended in one form or the other, Peter's kept alternating between flesh, metal then energy.  
"We leave now!" Holy Mother screamed and activated the Stargate, the circular Stargate on the circumference of the island erupting with power and then the island vanished. 


	7. War, the Preamble

X-Men: Sanctuary Issue # 7 By Kyle Phoenix  
  
Roster: Northstar Magma Shadowcat Peter Rasputin, Jr. Black Bishop Psyche Paulie Spike Frenzy Karma Chamber Nightcrawler Iceman Talisman  
  
Sanctuary Base, Australia:  
  
"We're impressed with the speed which you've gotten this base up linked to the Xavier Institute in America," Emma smiled as they strolled through the main control center, almost a mile below the surface.  
"I've had quite a bit of experience getting large organizations up and running, even a country or two, Ms. Frost. I do see it as a unique challenge though to be welcomed into the "X-Family"," he said politely.  
"Coming from a man with a personal telepathic shielding device, how do we know that we can trust you?" she asked coyly.  
Alex grinned. "I allowed Charles to psi scan me in several of our initial meetings. He was satisfied. The psi screen is for my privacy as I still retain sensitive information about several governments."  
"But, Mr. Rosten, how will we know if you've betrayed us to one of those governments you're protecting?" Emma asked directly, her eyes focused on him so directly he wondered briefly if the psi shield was working and how well. After all the telepaths it had been tested against weren't in Charles or Emma league. What if Charles had lied about it's effectiveness against a truly power telepath.  
"I agreed for Charles to implant a deep subconscious reaction within me that will create a "tell" if you will."  
"Yes, I know. Charles tells me everything," Emma said matter of factly.  
"I doubt it, but I'm sure he finds it pleasing to allow you to believe so," Alex said smoothly then IT appeared interrupting what was about to erupt into a full on confrontation.  
IT announced in it's calm, digitized voice, "Alex, I'm picking up several transmissions from the Brazilian air force concerning a unique situation. The locators within the X-Men's comm links place them on the outskirts of the Brazilian coast by their relative speed and height, I would surmise an aircraft of some sort. The unique aspect of the situation is that supposedly the air force is in pursuit of a floating island."  
"That is odd," Alex admitted as IT's forehead expanded into a holographic screen showing several jets pursuing a floating chunk of land about five miles in circumference.  
"I take it the X-Men's locators are scattered throughout the island?' Emma asked dryly.  
"Affirmative, Ms. Frost," IT replied.  
"It would be so. They have a way of involving themselves in the most surprising situations. I guess that's why Talisman whisked them away so abruptly. Shall we continue the tour?" Emma said, bored with IT's report.  
"Don't you want to help?" Alex asked.  
"How? And with what? A telepath and a governmental manager certainly can't land an island nor deal with whatever force the X-men are facing. If they die, shouldn't I have familiarity with this base for the next generation of X-Men?"  
"That's cold, woman!"  
"Actually, Mr. Rosten, that's from Xavier's own protocols. Seems I know things that both you and he might be surprised at. Though occasionally maudlin, Charles is deliciously efficient about mutants. Some live, some die but those of us who manage and teach must trudge on, as it were."  
"Alex, you might want to look at this," IT interrupted and replayed a satellite telecast of the island speeding over the Atlantic Ocean and then vanishing in a wash of energy.  
"That's odd!" Emma snapped.  
"Oh, that part is odd? The island flying is normal?" Alex snickered.  
"No. I sense the X-Men----somewhat. It's hard to explain to a non- telepath. They're in some sort of transit but there's a powerful psychic link to this base. Move!" she shoved him out of the way and ran upstairs. He shrugged and followed.  
"IT, get a full sensor sweep of the Sanctuary base and all possible energy wavelengths around us. Ms. Ice Telepath senses something."  
"Understood, Alex. I am also detecting a spatial disruption. I believe a terminus point is opening on Gateway's ridge."  
  
Talisman screamed as she'd never screamed before. She had instinctively reached for her strongest wards, her greatest stationary spell power points when the island Stargate had activated, and that was the Sanctuary base itself. Her power had been pushed to its limits, or rather her comprehension of how to use her power. While she possessed nearly unlimited mystical power, she was still growing in how to use them. A nuclear reactor still mastering electricity, she'd come to think of herself. But the concept of five thousand people being abandoned to these creatures was anathema to her, and she would blow every mystical fuse in her body to rescue them and destroy whatever it was that had started this whole abomination to begin with.  
Holy Mother turned to her within the Stargate interdimensional haze and viciously grabbed Talisman's throat. "I will see you dead, bitch!"  
"Not today, alien!" Nemesis said, rising from behind, swirling in golden energy and drove her sword deep into the woman's chest. At first Holy Mother seemed deeply wounded, her body slumping then her had snapped back up like a manikins.  
Holy Mother laughed. "I am not even close to being human, you fool! The heart you strike for does not exist!" She was about to snap Talisman's throat when she felt a distinct power signature trying to pull the Stargate back to the Earth dimension. "No!"  
  
Emma stood next to Gateway, both of them looking up into an energy portal, two thousand feet above them, that had yet to produce anything but two tendrils of energy that were firmly planted into the ground. The swirling energies looked like the teleportational field Gateway created but Emma sensed only a residual connection from the mutant to it. This wasn't his creation but someone was using his constant power base as a locus point.  
"What do you make of this, old friend?" Emma chuckled. "Seems our Talisman refuses to let the enemy just snatch them away. This other tendril? Someone else?" Emma cautiously reached deeper into the portal with her telepathy and found a young man in a deep struggle to hold onto "the metal he knew....the biggest metal he knew". She realized the fragmented thought must've meant the Sanctuary base itself. As Alex Rosten came up behind them, Emma swept his mind, his surface thoughts clear enough to glean in spite of the device that kept thoughts he chose personal, found out who Peter Rasputin, Jr. was and hypothesized his powers from there. "Back both of you, seems Emma has to reinforce the conduit to our precious X-Men!" Emma Frost, her words bolder than she felt, dipped both of her hands into the energy tendrils and sent a psionic burst of power into them, focused on thinking of herself as a block of power that would not be moved. To the two novices she sent bursts of both strength and lightning fast intensive psi training on how to strengthen the tendrils until first the Shi'ar ship came through the portal and then a minute later there was the loudest explosion Emma had ever heard and the portal exploded into an island.  
"Oh, shit!" Emma gulped; the three of them had been knocked to the ground by the eruption of energy and air pressure from the portal. The island hovered thousands of feet above the Sanctuary base for what seemed like an eternal moment and then like the big rock it was, it dropped.  
"Bloody good work!" Alex shrieked sarcastically as he grabbed her and dove into a portal Gateway had opened for the three of them.  
  
Like a song abruptly cut off, when the island returned to the Earth dimension, Magma could now hear her precious land below her again. Somehow they'd been brought back and more importantly she could sense that it was the Sanctuary base below them. The sudden updraft of the island plummeting told her exactly what she had to do. With a quick thought, the ground below her opened and Magma plummeted through the island itself, falling out the bottom of the island and towards the Sanctuary base below. She grinned in glee as she called forth her earth, her closest friend in many ways, to help. A spire of earth began rising, rising, faster than any mountain had risen in thousands of years to slam into the side of the plummeting island, knocking it from directly above the Sanctuary base.  
  
Talisman and Nemesis slammed into the ground, trees from the island having suddenly sprung up and batted them down, both clutching Holy Mother who was thrashing violently at them. Magma's impromptu knocking of the island had lopsided it and insanely enough, slammed it into the airborne trio. The white cloaked woman finally kicked her way free and hundreds of Brood swarmed from the jungle and created a physical barrier between the X- men and the sorceress. Nemesis drew her sword up to slash her way through the throng but Talisman put her hand on her teammates.  
"No! Have you noticed that they haven't attacked us as viciously as they could? There are thousands of them, even with our powers, they could simply bury us and kill us. The Brood are still human enough to hold back. Protect her, they will, but they won't harm us if we don't push it," Talisman theorized, though she felt as deep a rage as Nemesis. Too much was happening so fast; she couldn't allow Holy Mother to push them into foolish moves. And Talisman wasn't sure how much power she had left, she was seeing spots, her every limb trembled and she could taste blood in her mouth. She was draining too much of herself for this battle, she hadn't arrived at a point where she could battle so much, so many on so many levels so rapidly. Unfortunately, in many ways she was an intermediate at how to manifest magic for specific acts. Blunt power, yes, but finesse was where she needed more experience.  
"What good does that do us?" Nemesis asked bitterly, she felt the power rising within her demanding release, demanding to deal with this vermin but Talisman was right.  
"It weakens Holy Mother's threats!" Talisman said and soared into the air, calling upon all the wind spirits, calling upon the gravity spirits, casting an ever-expanding spell onto the island itself. She couldn't allow it to crash land.  
  
"Peter!" Shadowcat shouted but Nightcrawler grabbed her arm as she tried to get closer to the glowing, writhing man.  
"No, Katzchen, allow him to finish his work. He's acting as a circuit breaker to the Stargate, linking us back to the Sanctuary base!"  
"He doesn't have that kind of power! It will kill him!" she cried but didn't phase out of her teammate's grasp, his reasoning overwhelming her panic at seeing Peter die. A Peter that so resembled her own lost Piotr. "We have to help him, somehow!"  
"Then let's make ourselves useful!" Northstar said, grabbed her arm and swooped up into the air. "Phase us through the island itself; we'll destroy the Stargate from within."  
"Yes!" Shadowcat said and a moment later they were zig zagging through the earth until they came upon several caverns full of machinery. Northstar stopped and Shadowcat allowed them to become tangible as she hurriedly examined the computers. "It was jury rigged together, looks like. From bits and pieces of Shi'ar technology that must've been left here over the years. It won't be hard to destroy and then we've got to get off of this dropping rock."  
  
"Is it always this interesting?" Carlos chuckled as the small group of X-Men arrived at the front edge of the island, not daring to go any closer than twenty feet to where it abruptly dropped off into the sky above the Australian outback, thousands of feet below.  
"We'll find out if we don't land this son of a bitch!" Warren laughed darkly. "Ok, Spike, Iceman, you two are in charge creating an ice/energy buttress as the forefront of this island. Coat the island in as much ice to soften the skid."  
"Warren, we're a flung rock! We should jump ship!" Psyche shouted.  
"This may be aerodynamically a rock but it's full of deadly Brood, we have to control where and how it lands. Not to mention we have to be alive when it does so!" he snapped back at her. "Now, if you have a better damn idea, then speak up!"  
Psyche was shocked at how harshly he'd spoken to her but from his mind she felt only cool resolve to lead, to survive, to triumph. At first she was deeply hurt then she understood that she had started doubting him because of the whole Meridian drama. As his co-leader, she couldn't allow personal crap to get in the way.  
"My mistake, Warren. I wasn't thinking. Chamber, Carlos, your powers are best served locating Karma and Frenzy, evacuating those who aren't suited to the task ahead."  
"And me?" Paulie asked.  
Warren nodded at the X-Man who's chest and face were a dazzling swirl of energy. "Chamber, give him the frequency to the Shi'ar scout ship, we'll use that to gather our teammates and get off of here. Paulie, you're in charge of plucking each and every X-Man off of here!"  
I've got Hunter on a channel, he's coming in to pick you up, Paulie, and he's been staying within the Stargate terminus range for just such a maneuver, Chamber said to his teammate, slightly amazed at how calm they were all being about what was amounting to the implausible meeting the impossible.  
"So I get to play Scotty and beam everyone off of this motherfucker, eh?' Paulie grunted, he had hoped for something a bit more challenging.  
"We could just strap you to the front of the island and find out how invulnerable you really are," Iceman grinned.  
"Hey, Scotty lives, I'm not looking to be sucking on earthworms with Thunderbird."  
"Such a way with words," Iceman chuckled then took a deep breath then seemed to melt into the ground, but by the time his physical form had submerged into where his knees had been it began spreading out rapidly like a tidal wave of ice. The wave of ice began increasing in dimension, size, forming first around the twenty feet to the ledge and then encompassing the ground, forming into a wedge. Ice began rising up all around them as the X- Men backed up from the walls of ice racing through the jungle, surrounding it from the edge inwards.  
"Come on, Cecelia, I've saved the best seat in the house for you!" the ice said from all around."  
A pathway opened in the center of the ice wedge and Spike ran inside of it and found an ice chair made especially for her. As soon as she sat in it, the ice moved through the walls of ice until she was facing outwards, at the tip of the wedge, ice restraints around her waist and shoulders.  
"Oh, shit, Bobby!" she muttered, "this is majorly freaky. I mean I knew you weren't exactly, well biologically organic when you did your icing up but I never figured you could just be ice, you know?"  
"Relax, I'm learning to not think of myself as just ice or flesh anymore," Iceman said, his voice coming from all around her. "Just focus your shield into a reinforcing spike and curve the ends for when we hit. We need to move the ground out of the way. I'll keep reinforcing the ice within your spike so use the hardness from that to maintain solidity! Layers. Think layering. Hey, technically you're sitting on my face!" he laughed.  
"I-I don't know how! I can't see it! I don't understand!" Spike screamed it was like being in a plane cockpit without the front of the plane; the ground was approaching so rapidly. "I also don't need to know that the ice is all you! Bastard!"  
"Stay loose, I'm bringing help!" Iceman said and a moment later a bubble of ice erupted behind and slightly above Spike's, forming into a chair with restraints. And then Psyche came tumbling out of an ice shute.  
"That was not fun, Iceman!" Psyche said and grabbed Spike's shoulders. "Focus on the image I'm going to give you, Cecelia, we don't die here. Trust that!"  
"Ok, an image. I can see it. I can feel it! I get it. Geometry was my worse subject and now it's such a part of my powers. This is good. I understand!" Spike said as the necessary formation of her shield around the ice wedge was psychically pushed into her mind.  
"Don't worry about the landing, I'm slowly pulling you guys out of the direct line of impact," Iceman said calmly.  
"Looks like somebody has gone all Silver Galactus on us! Mr. Iceman scared of you!" Spike laughed her fear so intense that she couldn't do anything but whoop at the ride and cry hysterically as the ground approached so rapidly. She could make out roads now and what looked like hard, hard rocky ground below.  
"Silver Surfer," Iceman corrected.  
"I thought the planet eating guy was purple?"  
"Never mind," Iceman laughed.  
"Magma!" Psyche screamed into her comm link. "We could use some help here!"  
On the ground, almost half a mile behind, riding a wave of earth, Magma chuckled. "I figured you would all surmise it was easier to land the island than destroy it! I'm ready!"  
Magma raised her arms and the earth literally split open in front of her and then the fissure sped forward in the blink of an eye, expanding to an improvised landing strip. The hard rocky topsoil pushed aside for a softer soil beneath and then pushed forward to create a cushion as she tried to approximate how far she would have to continue expanding the strip. Talisman's spell had altered the weight and density of the island some what, it was no longer plummeting as quickly. It was more of sailing towards the ground now.  
"Can someone please give me an idea of how far this has to go?" she called out over her comm link. "Miles?"  
"Not too much farther! We're going to slow this behemoth down now!" Nemesis announced over the open link, having flown directly in front of the plummeting island. She grasped her sword in both hands above her head and it erupted with golden energy that at first seemed to slam into Spike and Iceman's wedge.  
Spike screeched and closed her eyes but kept her arms extended to hold in place her plasma field. The golden energy tingled along her shield as if the shield were her own flesh then it grabbed firmly the entirety of the forward structure of ice and energy the two had created, using both as a guide and re-enforcer to coat the bottom of the island in the energy field that would buffer it in landing.  
And incredibly enough, Nemesis pushed back against the thousands of tons of earth. She pushed with a valiant cry of indignation, that the island would simply not be allowed to push her, to push any further than she allowed. Though she was aware that physics wasn't on her side, the island had both weight and momentum, she knew that Talisman's spells were altering the normal physics around the rock. That meant that she too could do the impossible, that she could summon up powers that these X-Men didn't know she had in this guise and wield them as she did the sword that was part of her disguise. Perhaps when she no longer needed a mask to hide who she truily was, how she knew so many of them that her heart ached at being so close to them and having to protect her identity, they would understand, comprehend where this incredible power came from. But for now she would push, she would push with her sword, with her very soul until this blasphemous island came to rest.  
"Great Spirits!" Psyche gasped as she felt a slight pushing back into her icy seat as Nemesis's power began shoving the island back, taking away slips of momentum.  
"WHOOOOOOHOOOOO!" Iceman screamed from the entirety of his ice structure, expanding it to encompass the entirety of the front of the island and almost two thirds of the under belly, Spikes' shield following the flow and Nemesis following her, the tri-layer allowing them to hold the island, prevent it from crumbling and slow it's plummet.  
There was a sudden wrenching from behind and Iceman felt through his icy "body" almost four miles wide, energy tendrils wrapping around the base of the island and pulling it backwards.  
Warren looked up at the ragged Talisman, who was practically on fire with eldritch energy, wisps of demons and faeries soaring around her as the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak erupted from her hands and she visibly yanked at the island to slow it from behind.  
  
"Dios! I never imagined you X-Men were so powerful!" Carlos muttered from the scout ship.  
"And this is just on the fly, imagine what we could do with a little planning," Warren smiled; Nightcrawler had teleported them and Paulie onto the scout ship, their powers useless in such an endeavor.  
"Dios, Warren, the X-Men are amazing!" Carlos chuckled then turned back to the communications board he was monitoring. Though he didn't read Shi'ar Hunter had quickly reprogrammed the viewers to display English. There was an incoming flashing message. "Chamber has located Karma and Frenzy."  
"X-Men Exit Express. Be right back!" Nightcrawler said jovially and vanished in a burst of brimstone.  
"Your comrades are indeed powerful but we have yet to deal with the original threat of the Brood," Hunter said as Warren leaned over his shoulder and intently watched the through the view screen the small island descending to the ground in a more controlled fashion. For a moment he felt a deep pang of regret or agony at not being able to stretch his wings and soar around the sky to at least have a bird's eye view of what was going on. He suddenly felt a sense of what others must've felt around him for years, envy at flying.  
We have other matters to attend to first, then we will investigate what Meridian did to you, Carlos counseled psionically and Warren felt first ashamed and then embraced by the rapport. Psyche's attention was focused on strengthening Spike's mental focus but he could feel her out there too. He suspected that the rapport was similar to what Phoenix and Cyclops shared, that this is what bolstered him to be such a paragon leader in the X-men. Could this help him as well? But what of the more delicate parts of a trois rapport? Warren still felt a little frightened at the prospect of a rapport with Carlos, something so intimate shared with another man brought up questions of sexuality that Warren hadn't even considered before. To know another man so potentially intimately and not desire him seemed impossible now. So many questions swirling around that didn't even have anything to do with the crisis at hand.  
"Hunter, can the sensors locate the two Holy Mother's?"  
"Yes, they've retreated underground. Near to where your locators place Northstar and Shadowcat," Hunter said grimly. "And I don't know of a way to help them, they seem to literally be in the belly of the beast."  
  
"If you take one step closer, I will kill them," the white cloaked man said, his hands erupting with barely contained eldritch energy.  
Northstar and Shadowcat both considered what they could and couldn't do with their respective powers. Could they cross three hundred feet in the cavern and stop the mad mystic from blasting hundreds of unconscious children?  
Shadowcat licked her lips and hoped that Northstar would follow her cue, they couldn't risk his letting one blast loose but they couldn't allow the threat to stand. "I take it this is the secret of San Madre? That these children are being kept prisoner? That this is why the transformed Brood haven't gone buck wild and killed us already? Why they've been holding back?" she said waving her arms at the insensate children littering the cavern floor.  
The man spoke. "I am the other half of the Holy Mother. She speaks through me. Before the Holy Mother I was a fool, a man who had no power, no future. And now I am the right hand of a goddess! These children are not part of the nexus; they are useless for the transformation into soldiers. We will use them to go to the Broodworld and dominate it!"  
"Besides the obvious transsexual overtones, tell me, how does insanity actually feel?" Northstar asked snidely.  
Shadowcat bit her lip to keep back a dark smile, Northstar sure did have a way with words but he was a good contrast as she continued. "Listen, we don't want anyone to get hurt here. And I think Holy Mother has given you a slightly skewed perception of the Broodworld. I've been there. There are millions of Brood there. They will decimate you. Squash you like a bug.....ooops. Sorry."  
"Nice analogy," Northstar sighed.  
The male Holy Mother seemed to hesitate for a moment, unsure what to do. "You've been there? To the Broodworld?"  
"Yes. Yes, I have. I was infected with a Queen egg. I survived. Look, I understand how maybe this far away from the home world you and Holy Mother have gotten a little twisted up on exactly what it's like but trust me when I say that you won't be able to just walk in there and take over," Shadowcat said, slowly stepping through the sleeping children towards what she was beginning to see was a young Latin man. He couldn't have been more than a year or two older than her. She suspected that he was a mutant and somehow Holy Mother was using him as a conduit and with her (hopefully) getting her ass royally kicked topside by the X-Men, he was without directions.  
"Why did you give up the Queen Egg?" he asked, incredulous at such a refusal.  
"Ummmm.....well, we sort of went through a Stargate with a friend and uhhh....I'm sorry but it didn't stay in," Shadowcat offered, lying about how it had been removed as well as dancing liberally around the X-Men making every effort to scrape, blast, destroy the abominations out of their bodies.  
"Your words about being one of the infected are true but you're telling bits and pieces of the rest," the mystic said bluntly.  
"Yeah, I'm a little freaked out here. Kids. Brood. You aiming that energy hand at them. I'm nervous. What's your name? No offense but it's hard to call you "Holy Mother"."  
"Raphael. She said that we had to be like our soldiers, not individuals and we all called her Holy Mother when she came here. When she came to San Madre."  
"Ok, Raphael, I take it you're from San Madre and some of these people are your friends and family? What started all of this? What happened?"  
Raphael sighed heavily as if he'd wanted to relate this tale for some time now. "The Holy Mother came to the Church and she had a Queen Egg in a strange metal capsule with her. But she wouldn't use it on me or herself. She's infected but somehow she has power over the Brood, she controls them like Queen without becoming one in body. She implanted a woman who was in a coma. The Queen hatched but was comatose. Then she infected others but they follow Holy Mother because of her magicks and because she ate the Queen Egg," Raphael said calmly. "I was different. She said I had potential. I can do things but it gets confusing when we're apart."  
"Ok, the ingesting part if way gross but I think you're a mutant like us, Raphael and that Holy Mother is controlling you, using you as her puppet to hurt your friends and family," Shadowcat said calmly. It seemed to be the longer he was away from Holy Mother the less her control of him was. And he had begun lowering his glowing hand, not wanting to harm the sleeping children.  
"I don't want to hurt anyone," Raphael admitted and his hand began to dim. Shadowcat stepped slightly to the side as a signal and an instant later Northstar had slammed into the young man. With a dozen blows at once, the confused mutant was beaten unconscious.  
"About time, I thought this was going the way of a bad talk show," Northstar growled.  
"If Holy Mother controls the Brood to the extent of their not wanting her to hurt their children then we have her leverage over them," Shadowcat said racing to the computer consoles. She'd hated to betray the trust she was building with Raphael but his mental freedom wasn't something she was willing to gamble on at the moment.  
"We also have thousands of Brood who are being controlled by her and her alone. We have no alternative control system to humans who've become monstrous aliens," Northstar reminded.  
"I know. Warren, you there?" Shadowcat asked on her comm link.  
"Here. But the connection is bad, we're boosting it through the Shi'ar ship's systems," Warren crackled back into her ear piece. "What's the sitch in there?"  
Shadowcat quickly apprised him of the situation and several minutes later Warren, Carlos and Paulie teleported into the cavern.  
"Man, am I glad you're both ok!" Paulie grinned at Northstar and Shadowcat. "Especially you, Kitty!"  
Shadowcat blushed slightly. "Thanks, Paulie, I liked the Star Trek entrance."  
"The Shi'ar shuttle has its advantages," Warren said as he leaned down with a medical kit and began examining one of the sleeping children. "They're giving off a lot of psionic energy. I bet Holy Mother is using them as some sort of battery and we can't soundly beat her without having the Brood upstairs go batty. We also can't beam the kids out, ship is too small. Anyone got any options what we can do? This island is going to hit the ground in about eight minutes. These kids will be hurt for sure."  
There was silence in the cavern and then Carlos spoke up. "Restart the Stargate."  
"What?!" Northstar gasped.  
"He's right. The Acanti, the Stargates, the Shi'ar technology to cure the townspeople is all out in space, not on Earth. We couldn't possibly contain the Brood here and Holy Mother will fight us every step of the way," Shadowcat reasoned already crossing the cavern towards the Shi'ar Stargate controls embedded in the rocks.  
Warren stood stock still for a moment, Shadowcat's hands dancing over the controls then she turned to him for the final okay.  
  
Psyche stayed firmly focused on focusing her power into Spike's mind, expanding the woman's vision of her abilities, the scope as the ground came closer and closer. There had been a time when Psyche had been able to create solid the images she pulled form her mind or the minds of others, this was akin to relaying that experience, that ability to Spike. Fortunately there was a primitive simpatico to their abilities in that respect, Spike had just never thought of her psi-plasma shields as expanding miles around her like a solid shield around the base of an island before.  
"Brace yourselves!" Iceman yelled from all around them and Psyche, for all of her brashness and courage couldn't help but to shut her eyes as the first impact happened and the skidding began. It wasn't as jarring as she thought it would be then she saw why, they'd skimmed off of a cliff towards a valley that reminded her of the Grand Canyon, they were airborne again. Like a skipping stone.  
In that instant she knew that they wouldn't survive this.  
We're here, Carlos replied to her psi cry of pure fear. She was confused for a moment, because both he and Warren were somewhere on the island. She knew this from their psionic closeness but then she sensed a feeling of resignation and dread from them and for the second time she saw the Stargate effect swirl outwards from the town and she screamed.  
  
"No! NO! NO!" Talisman raged, trying to call upon more mystical power to stop the Stargate from opening again but her body spasmed, her heart felt like it was erupting, exploding and she collapsed to the ground, clutching her chest gasping as the universe shifted all around her.  
  
"We go where they go!" Nightcrawler said to Hunter and the Shi'ar shuttle dove into the Stargate effect.  
  
Magma, riding a flow of lava considered what was occuring, the Stargate was activated yet again and that her teammates and friends were still on the now plummeting island, which was going....? She had a choice to make. To not go, to not help or to surge herself forward on her earth/lava ramp and leap onto an isle that reeked of death and doom. But in many ways that she'd yet to vocalize this team of X-men were hers. She forced the lava to push her faster and dove off of the cliff after the island, into the Stargate effect laughing, wondering how many Lord Cardinal Red Queen's would travel the stars, it seemed to be a pre-requisite.  
  
Somewhere in deep space:  
  
Like a wormhole terminus opening, there was a brilliant flash and then San Madre, impossibly transcended all that it's forefather's could've imagined for it. It materialized in deep space. Starlight glinted off of the mystical shield that still surrounded the island, maintaining a minute portion of the atmosphere and gravity. But like a pricked balloon, that soon began escaping and the original intent of the spell maintained.  
Contain the Brood.  
Though they panicked and flew off wildly, their bodies were rebuffed back to the surface.  
Holy Mother looked at the stars, felt the Broodworld's around her, and shrieked a cry that was more alien than any sound a human could make.  
Millions of kilometers away the Brood Queen heard the shriek, knew that this was a challenger and reached out with her mind, with her rage to identify this usurper then the cry was abruptly cut off.  
But the Brood Queen had the mental "scent" of thousands of children she hadn't sired and they flashed in her mind with a power, a mystical/psionic radiance that was both terrifying and rapturous. She called to all of her lieutenants to ready the ships, the small but powerful contingent could not be allowed to escape her grasp for long.  
  
San Madre:  
  
Shadowcat hadn't lived long but she was used to pain. This said a lot about her life. When she'd activated the Stargate she'd made some necessary adjustments.  
First, she'd expanded the Stargate wave to almost a mile more than the island itself, reasoning that her teammates would be within that sphere and when they got to the other side of this trip, they'd need them.  
Secondly, she'd changed their arrival coordinates from Holy Mother's intended Broodworld, to millions of miles from it in deep space and then to Shi'ar space, reasoning that they would need help immediately upon arrival. She'd wracked her brains to make sense of the kit bashed computers and Stargate controls as she tried to remember what was where, her Shi'ar language training and her astrophysics computations.  
The fact that technically she was driving a rock through space hadn't escaped her attention but the Stargate effect created a temporary atmosphere upon transit. Though the island had been originally programmed to manifest within a planet's atmosphere, not outside of it, Shadowcat had programmed it to appear in deep space. A minute appearing near the Broodworld and then another immediate Stargate jump to her newly programmed coordinates. This was still a rock and as a large rock, simply, it was easier to let it go to its' first intended target and then ricochet it into another direction.  
Thirdly, she'd calculated how long they would need, upon reappearance, to knock out every Brood (and unfortunately X-Man), topside. With their tough hides and reptilian nature, she'd given it a couple of minutes, enough time to shock everyone unconscious, recalibrate the sensors and Stargate a third time. This time she had the island appear on one of the many moon's the sensors had picked up. It was the constant Stargating that started giving her the intense body pain. Everyone else in the cavern was unconscious except for Paulie who was kneeling, visibly shaken. He was one tough cuss, she admitted, her phasing having diluted a lot of the shockwaves but she suspected that her natural state of intangibility wasn't quite making her in phase to the spatial jaunts, which is what was causing her so much pain.  
"Ok, I want my fucking money back! That ride sucked!" Paulie grunted as he made his way over to her and the control console. He was the foulest mouthed X-Man next to Wolverine she'd ever meet and with his thick hair, olive complexion and full lipped sexy leer she couldn't help wonder where all these hotties were when she'd been a full-time X-Man.  
"Sorry, Paulie, I had to compensate for the Brood's rough hides. I expect they're all knocked out topside," she grinned. "Lots of mathematical calculations while trying to remember both spatial combinations and Shi'ar space coordinates. The sensors Holy Mother had built into this island are Hodge Podge at best."  
"You're one smart cookie. That turns me on like a fire hose!" he laughed then slumped to the ground, panting. "Feel like I've been squeezed like a box of orange juice."  
"Spatial distortion and the released atmospheric pressure. I hope the others forgive me, it must've been momentary agony," Shadowcat sighed then got to work linking her comm unit into the console. Sure enough, less than a mile away she located Hunter's ship, sent him a quick data stream message, she'd been sending him data bursts since the first jaunt, and she and her fellow X-Men vanished from the cavern.  
  
"I don't like this job!" Spike screeched in the Shi'ar shuttle as she quickly went from teammate to teammate checking their vital signs, they were all accounted for and huddled in seats and on the floor in thermal blankets, it looked like a slumber party.  
"We get paid coins as well?" Peter asked, clutching a blanket around himself. He was visibly drawn and trembling from first the massive exertion of his power yanking the island out of the first Stargate and then experiencing the second one and re-materializing in deep space for an instant before Hunter had beamed him aboard.  
"A Gold Card from American Express!" Spike snorted. "Like I didn't already have one! Here slurp down one of these alien nutrient packs. Hunter says they're full of vitamins and replenishes. Of course the fact that they're an avian cross alien species, technically only Warren probably will get any nourishment from this."  
"They taste like liquefied beef jerky," Bobby complained as Spike quickly checked his vitals then moved on to another X-Man. He handed one to Peter and then took it back because of the young man's trembling hands. "I'll open that for you."  
"Thank you. I've never used my powers that way before. Generally I only deal with small metal, body metal. I didn't know that I could hold onto a place just by thinking it. I know I should've said something before I tried it but I was scared when the Stargate thing first started," Peter admitted to the crowded cabin of cold and physically exhausted X-Men.  
"Don't sweat it, Petey, you did sensational! We'd of popped into Broodworld Main Street if not for your quick thinking," Psyche said as she batted away Spike's ministrations. "I'm fine. You should be resting, Cecelia, I pushed a lot of psionic energy through you."  
"I'm fine, Dani. I just let it all go into my shield. My shield is part psionic so your boost was more of natural to me than intrusive. You however have these forearm injuries from the Marauders to allow to properly heal as well as what looks like the onset of complete exhaustion. I'd say that's true for everyone. Warren, Dani, Kurt, you guys are the leaders and the official doctor to the X-Men is demanding a rest for everyone!"  
"She is right, Danielle, please sit, there isn't much room for your usual pacing anyway," Carlos said as he put a blanket around Psyche's shoulders and pressed her gently back into her seat. Warren glanced at them both for a second and though Psyche expected jealousy from him, she felt only a sense of comfort and strength through the rapport. Carlos touching her, comforting her, caring for her was an extension of Warren's as well.  
"While this ship could house us for a short jaunt, fifteen of us, will overtax the life support systems at some point. Am I correct, Hunter?" Northstar asked.  
"We have approximately thirty of your solar days of supplies and life support at this level of passengers. However you must remember that without Stargating this ship would take twenty days, possibly longer to reach a suitable port. By suitable I mean one not hostile to mutants. You have been branded as Contagion within the confines of the Shi'ar Empire Imperium Space," Hunter explained. "All Shi'ar and their allies are sworn to obliterate you should you be found in our territories."  
"Great parking place, you found us, Kitty girl," Amara chuckled but it wasn't a lancing barb so Kitty shrugged innocently.  
Can we Stargate without the island below? Chamber asked.  
"Yes, perhaps four or five jumps maximum and I was able to coordinate with Shadowcat to bring us to the outskirts of a system with a working Stargate. However that spatial anomaly we created also means that a Shi'ar battle cruiser will soon be on its' way to investigate the distortion on the moon."  
Talisman stood up. "I still have my mystical shield around the island itself, keeping them within its limits. It's holding because it was Brood specific, not to the island, so they're contained. If Holy Mother starts pounding on the shield, I'd have to be here to reinforce it."  
"Then, unfortunately, that tie binds you to staying right here, Elizabeth," Nightcrawler said. "Though from what we've all seen, your courage and strength have put this Holy Mother to shame."  
"Thanks, Kurt. I made an oath to help those people and I swear on my ancestors that I will. I have no problems with staying behind with them for as long as it takes."  
"Just promise me that the next beam outs will be while we're still within an atmosphere, that moment of appearing in deep space, no oxygen, the freezing cold, it was terrifying," Shan said, passing out Shi'ar nutrient packs to everyone.  
"Sorry but we had to wait until the island reappeared in deep space before beaming the topside X-Men onto the ship," Nightcrawler explained. "Once we realized what Kitty was doing we had to be sure we only teleported in X-Men and not Brood or Holy Mother."  
"I'm just glad to be off of that rock," Frenzy said, rubbing her sore arms as she looked out the viewer screen at the island, across the ocean. It sat on a small continent on an uninhabited moon, they were parallel to it, on a far peninsula of the land mass.  
Nemesis standing next to her, chuckled through her mask. "We've dragged a piece of Earth across the galaxy and may still be forced to eradicate it. On Earth we had them outnumbered and yet out here, we are now the minority without a home nearby. Why did you bring us here, Shadowcat?"  
"I knew that the Shi'ar typically terra form moons for habitation so the deeper into the system I brought us the greater the chances of finding a moon to drop onto," Kitty said, sitting next to Hunter at the control console as if she'd been born to manipulate the alien controls. "I was able to do some quick data bursts with Hunter so he knew what was about to happen. There was no time to cue you guys in. Sorry."  
"You did damn good, Kitty, we'd be dead or the Earth overrun if not for you," Psyche admitted. "Sorry about the razzing earlier."  
"Hey, it comes with the territory. Half the fun, is pulling your fat out of the fire for that humble pie grin," Kitty joked, the feeling of acceptance and warmth she felt from this incarnation of the X-Men both gratifying and intoxicating. It felt good to be part of something again.  
"Pie and then some," Psyche laughed and squeezed Kitty's shoulder affectionately.  
"If you girls wanna go all lesbo, maybe Shan joining in, I am available to take pictures," Paul offered brightly.  
"I'd almost forgotten what a room was like without a pervert, Paulie. Thanks for the comeback," Spike said pushing back his head as she checked his neck pulse.  
"For you, Dr. Hotty, any time."  
"I could always possess him into learning how good a kisser Jean-Paul is," Shan offered evilly.  
"It's like Will & Grace on this team!" Bobby laughed.  
"I certainly could teach Paulie a trick or two!" Northstar laughed and the cabin erupted in laughter that died down after a few seconds.  
"We still have the Brood Town to deal with as well as the Shi'ar. One of my people's starships will have noticed the large inter-spatial transport and come to investigate," Hunter explained. "Even if we explain what has occurred they will still destroy the moon itself to protect the Empire. And as you X-Men are considered contagion, they will destroy you as well."  
"Why? Do they hate our Matrix-wannabe uniforms? Who pissed in their cornflakes?" Paulie asked.  
"Cassandra Nova when she ran rampant in Xavier's body through the Shi'ar system destroying worlds, wholesale causing the death of hundreds of millions, crushing minds, driving their Majestrix Lilandra insane," Psyche explained.  
"Oh, yeah, that file. I read that one," Paulie mumbled. "So we got no friends, a town full of crazy lizards and an unconscious mystical bitch that will wake up and kill, kill, kill?"  
Don't forget the rapidly depleting life support aboard this cramped ship and the fact that we probably can't jump back to Earth without that bloody islands Stargate. Vicious aliens we now have to protect are sitting on our way home, Chamber reminded darkly.  
Warren looked around the crowded cabin, X-Men sitting in blankets, bruised, tired, thoroughly abused by the past few weeks and he wondered what Cyclops would say to them. In order to solve all of their problems they would have to break a lot more rules, push themselves a lot farther in the next few days. "We're going to have to steal a ship. A big enough ship to house all of those kids. Then we're going to have to find a way to transform those Brood back. Lastly, we're going to have to protect that island from the Shi'ar. That's the deal. Three teams, all three in the thickest shit possible. No guarantees and probably casualties. Any questions?"  
There was complete silence for several minutes and then suddenly Paulie began laughing hysterically. At first they all stared at him and then Talisman began chuckling too. Finally Psyche joined in and within a few minutes they were all guffawing and choking on peals of giggles.  
"Ain't that some shit! That's all, huh, Wings? Whoops, sorry!" Paulie howled and then exploded into another roar at the now useless nickname.  
"Fifteen X-men verses an Empire," Hunter grinned. "The odds sound correct to the legends I've heard."  
"I guess I finally know what one does with a ship full of X-Men," Warren muttered. "We'll need someone familiar with the Shi'ar on each team. So far that's Kitty, Kurt and Hunter. Team breakdowns as follows: Psyche, Carlos, Frenzy, Peter, Magma and Nightcrawler with me---we're going to find a cure. Shadowcat leads Team Two on stealing a starship and that'll be Iceman, Northstar, Spike, Karma, Paulie and Nemesis. Team Three: Talisman, Chamber and Hunter guard Brood Town. Keep them in and the Shi'ar from destroying them and the children."  
"Warren, what's our timeline? Our deadline rather? We could spend years on a wild goose chase," Shadowcat asked grimly.  
"One week. After that Talisman, Hunter, Chamber, snatch out the kids and blow Brood Town to Hell. We'll have no choice. Kitty, hopefully you'll be back by then with a ship to carry them away in. If not, make for the southern hemisphere of the moon. My team will find an Acanti or a transportable Stargate. Hunter, take whatever gear and explosives you'll need off of the ship, my team will drop Kitty's off at the nearest planet with a space dock. Lie, cheat, and if you have to, steal a ship."  
"Finally, crime!" Paulie cheered.  
Warren shook his head good-naturedly. "Figured you'd like your mission, Paulie. My team will take the ship to find an Acanti, a non-co- opted by the Brood one. Or we'll be back to help with the destruction of the Brood Town."  
"I may be able to help there," Hunter said. "The Brood had infected several Shi'ar dignitaries and they were cured by a man named K'lar. I believe he is a mutant like you. However he was a consort of Deathbird's. I believe she was keeping him as a tool to use should the Brood ever wholesale co-opt the Empire."  
"Then Deathbird has just got herself a ticket to meeting us again. We'll try her and beat it back here with a cure," Psyche promised.  
"Ummmm....what if we can't steal a ship?" Spike asked.  
"Then it won't matter, we'll be stuck on a planet. Most likely in prison being savagely beaten and raped by aliens for whom our various orifices will be too delicate to avoid destroying," Northstar answered bluntly.  
"Just making sure this plan had no possible happy ending," Spike muttered.  
"I knew Northstar would find a way to introduce sodomy into this mission!" Paulie quipped.  
"Oh, I feel confident that we'll come out of this fine," Magma sighed. "Deathbird? Charming."  
  
Battle cruiser Tr'Lar:  
  
"Sub-Commander, the scanning wave is confirmed. There was a massive Stargate localized field eruption on the moon, Salar," the technician announced on the bridge.  
Sub-Commander Ari bowed her head for a moment in the command chair, the question of whether they even had a duty to investigate the outer regions any longer was heavy on her mind. Manpower, resources, repairs to her ship, all considerations as to whether she could investigate legitimate problems within Shi'ar space. These had been heavy times amongst her people. Times of death and change and madness. Not that the Shi'ar Empire hadn't been through much in the past millennia but to so brutally be attacked from within. Of over a thousand worlds, only two hundred were confirmed as still within a firm grip of both sanity and stability. How long that would last was anyone's best guess. Millions of ships aligned with the Empire had been reduced to less than a hundred thousand to patrol the borders of their territory. The Kree, the Skrulls, the Badoon, all were making gestures of possible annexing. The only thing that held them back was terror of the mind madness that had been spread by Majestrix Lilandra's consort. Only ship commanders and high government officials knew of the how the mental contagion of insanity had begun.  
Many within the Shi'ar High Council had called for the immediate destruction of Earth but truth be told their forces were spread too thin and they were afraid of the Earthlings. The Phoenix entity had destroyed a planet and then her mentor had gone mad and raped the Empire. Some said beyond repair. In a year's time, many theorists suggested that the Empire would collapse as they knew it.  
"What is the closest Empire planet?" she asked aloud. There were only four of them on the large bridge, normally there would be a minimum of fifteen btu these were hard times. Her crew had been dispersed throughout the galaxy to other Empire ships and bases to compensate for the mad or dead. From one thousand crewman to less than two hundred was almost unthinkable and yet they'd made it work.  
"Nima. There is currently a high level conference occuring there with Chancellor Havar and the Kree in an attempt to discuss accords."  
"Yes, Nima. One of our last chances," Ari muttered. There were so many "high level" diplomatic meetings occuring and being reported to the battle cruisers that it was hard to keep track of them all. The Empire was desperately trying to make both alliances and in some cases sell off star systems to fund infrastructure repairs.  
"We're technically part of their security detachment."  
"I take it they fall into the nineteen sectors we're to be responsible for?"  
"Twenty-four. Five more were added during your rest period."  
Ari smiled darkly to herself, in brighter times she would've been commanding ten fleets to be responsible for twenty four star systems. Now she was in a triumvirate partnership with three other battle cruisers that were light-years away. The strain gave her a lot of command latitude though. She could ignore the spatial disruption, citing a thousand other missions she had waiting. Of course if this was a genuine threat to the conference she might be demoted. No, she doubted she'd be demoted. They needed experienced commanders too desperately. But if the Empire did return to it's former glory, those that had shown the ability to pay attention to protecting those who were rebuilding the Empire would be both remembered and favored.  
"How long to Nima?" Ari asked.  
"Twelve solar hours if we jumpgate."  
"They do have several refueling and processing centers there, yes?"  
"Aye, Sub-Commander."  
"And we still have that confiscated Yridian ore. We could trade it, get some of those repairs done. Plot a course. Send a private communiqué to the Chancellor of our arrival but that we'll remain circumspect and why. Send a communiqué to Nima's space port that we're having severe engine trouble and will be there shortly."  
"Aye, Sub-Commander."  
"Engage."  
  
Somewhere:  
  
Joshua felt the disturbance. He felt the island, saw glimpses of the X-Men in pain, in terror and then he saw them coming to him. He sat up in his bed and walked out onto the terrace and looked up. The sky was full of stars as well as the slight greenish tint from the force field that kept him and the others imprisoned. He turned and looked at the bodysuit on the chair. We a focused thought he called to it and it seemed to disassemble and reassemble onto his body. All black with the exception of his namesake across one arm and part of his torso.  
For a moment he was frightened. Providence didn't come often to the damned, he'd learned the hard way. Xavier had all but destroyed him and the others, the mad telepath's power was beyond even Joshua's to halt. So many had died at Xavier's mind.  
If his precognitive dream were correct then the X-Men would be here soon, would breech the prison shield and then.....?  
What then? Joshua found himself stumped by that simple question.  
He sent his bodysuit back to the chair and slid back into bed.  
Perhaps his dreams would reveal that answer.  
And if they didn't then the Native Americans said a question slept on was easily answered upon waking. He prayed this was true.  
  
Shi'ar Moon:  
  
"It ain't simply fate that has put us on the same team. Hint, hint," Paulie grinned leaning over the ships' control console as Kitty worked on several calibrations.  
"You really are something else, Paulie. I don't think a guy has ever hit on me with the same amount of charm, humor and sleaze," Kitty laughed good-naturedly.  
"Hey, Katie-girl, me and you could be like one of the all time great X-Men love stories. Scott and Jean. Rogue and Gambit. Only less angst and constant dying. Also we can actually touch each other because maybe once or twice I can see getting a light bulb off of watching the other jerk off naked from the other side of the room, but years? Rogue and Gambit we would not be! Come on!"  
Kitty and Peter, Kitty thought to herself and glanced across the large room where Peter and Warren were working on emptying out several of the storage compartments. In profile, his long hair pinned back, he looked so much like Piotr she felt like she was reliving when she'd heard he was dead. How could she start again when the past kept coming back in so many forms? And could she even entertain that maybe, just maybe this Peter was a second chance at the happiness and pleasure that had eluded her with his father?  
"Wouldn't that be something," Kitty chuckled, lost in her thoughts for a moment. "I don't even know you, Paulie and it doesn't look like we're going to have time to go out to dinner so you're going to have to fill me in on the fly. How did you come to be an X-Man?"  
"Well, I got shanghaied into this group by Jean when Magneto went bonkers. We set his ass right then I went off to do my thing and eventually Charlie called me back for this Sanctuary outfit."  
"Do you like it? Being an X-Man? No code name?"  
"Ummmm. Well, I'd never been across the galaxy before to an alien moon and planets like now so it's got moments. I kinda got legal troubles that Charlie is helping me out with. I stay on the narrow with you guys and he gets me erased from certain databases. As for codenames, you're a smart chick, name me and I'll give you a me we won't be able to say in public."  
"You're a crook? I should've known!" she laughed. "So far you're just super invulnerable? I guess Hard was your first choice, eh?"  
"Ouch. Sarcastic but close. Raging Hard. Hey, another few months and I would've been in charge of the New York crime families. My invulnerability makes me a tough mark to off."  
"That's it? You're just invulnerable? Have you been able to develop it to anything else?"  
"So far but that seems to be a range of damage. I get used as a shield and a weapon a lot. Even psionic and magic stuff seems to not affect me as easily. Charlie said I could have a secondary mutation one day but that I shouldn't count on super strength. It's a bit overplayed though and we've got Frenzy for that department anyway. I found out a few weeks back that I'm very difficult to hurt, even by the Black Queen's vampire schtick. She tried to suck the juice out of the Paulster in the wrong way and got a shock of a lifetime."  
Kitty looked up at him grinning. "So I'm intangible and you're invulnerable, opposite ends of density."  
"Opposites attract."  
Kitty shrugged and tried not to look so deeply into his brown eyes. She couldn't help but to like him and that brought a feeling of sadness and fear. "I've had some rough times in the love department. They tend to die."  
"The whole invulnerable thing kinda makes that a tough proposition for me. Charlie says my aging has even slowed slightly. I might be immortal or close to it. So I'm not Mr. Gonna Get Blown Away. Ok, that didn't sound right," he winked.  
"You're incorrigible and I'm complicated. I'm not even sure that I'm going to stay with the team. I just came to Australia to find Peter, Jr. And then we got swept in the Madripoor/Marauders thing. Harpoon hurt me awhile back and I was looking to get some kicks in," she explained, still unsure of what she wanted to do.  
"You're here now."  
"Doesn't mean I'll stay."  
"You could've bailed in Madripoor or when the Brood Town appeared back in Australia. I think you're an action junkie and you're overwhelming attraction to me is a bonus."  
"I think you're so arrogant that it must be another super power."  
"I think you like that."  
"I haven't decided yet. Northstar says you'd be good for a fling."  
"See! Even gay guys have the hots for me! He's been scoping my ass in his free time, I'm sure."  
Kitty laughed. "Well we can consider stealing a starship our first date."  
"Hey, an intangible ninja thief brainiac and a wiseguy that can't be hurt. These alien cocksuckers don't have a friggin' chance. I'm all tingles on that one."  
  
Danielle, Carlos and Warren stood watching the mystically imprisoned Brood Town as Talisman floated high above re-casting and re-enforcing her spells.  
"Think it will hold a week?" Warren wondered aloud.  
Elizabeth's magick's are strong. She understands now what she faces, I have every confidence, Carlos answered psionically.  
"Are you any clearer about what happened to your wings, Warren?" Dani asked bluntly.  
"No. Hazy images, feelings sensations. Mostly sexual in nature. Like a wild bachelor party full of tequila. I'm sorry, Dani. I don't know why I went with her, why I didn't fight."  
Again more magicks at work, I suspect.  
"Thanks, Carlos. Or perhaps I'm just a weak man."  
"That's my vote," Dani said bitterly.  
That's not fair, Danielle.  
"No, Carlos, what isn't fair is that I'm caught between the two of you in this damn rapport. I sympathize, Warren, but we were getting close and it hurts me that something happened with Meridian. I look into your mind and from what I can see it was voluntary, not rape. Makes me wonder how deep your feelings for me were."  
"How do you think it feels knowing that you gave up body parts to someone and you're not clear as to why?" he said in exasperation.  
I might add that my place was to protect Lady Amara, I didn't ask to become part of this rapport.  
"And yet, you're the most comfortable with it which is why you speak so often to us telepathically," Warren reminded.  
I've had experience with this before. Not to this depth but experience.  
"You promised to explain your powers, you're not just a mutant. What are you?" Danielle asked.  
I am a mutant whose power bonded him to a demon. With great practice, I've learned to both imprison the demon and borrow some of it's' power. The Beast is strong though. I must be cautious.  
"The professor said he made you an offer to join the X-Men before we ever met you. Why didn't you accept?" Warren asked.  
It was around the time he was unifying the original five. I was in Spain. He approached me and I found his idea interesting but his offer lacked the power I needed. By that I mean he was not a mystic. The Hellfire Club had mystics. With them I am assured control over the Beast.  
"I've got the best question of all, Carlos," Dani grinned. "Exactly how old are you?"  
Carlos laughed. "Yes, Danielle, that is the best question of all. The answer is simple. I do not know. I awoke with my family as a baby. As I always have. I am reincarnated as the male child should my entire physical form be destroyed. So far that's happened quite a few times. I believe that is my mutant power. A form of immortality."  
"And how many times have you been reborn?"  
"The first few times I was deeply confused. I was young and it took awhile to understand, sometimes I am a babe and other the first male teenager. I am always confused, lost within the transfer of so much raw power and memories. The Beast unfortunately found me and its' presence helped me understand the extent or extension of my mortality. I would approximate seven or eight times. The fact that my first childhood memories are of caves and being nomadic suggest at least twenty thousand years of rebirths. I lose memories after each birth, or they fade, get scrambled."  
"So you're immortal? That vision I saw of the woman?" Dani pressed, fascinated by him as she understood why she'd seen the specter of Death around him. In many ways he was dead and his abilities akin to her own.  
"Yes, immortal, after a fashion. The woman, she was a lover from France, circa the early eighteen hundreds. Ceres was a mutant as well, a telepath of sorts. She could create psi rapports between herself or between others. She was quite the rage for a time in Paris until some lovers found that being deeply linked to someone for a lifetime was not always a gift. I believe Ceres killed me."  
"That might explain why I saw it. My Death Sense interacting with your psyche for the first time."  
"We're quite the trio, eh? I was once Death, you see Death and you can't die." Warren said.  
"I'm sure there is a purpose to our bonding. The two of you need to come to peace with it though. We three will be both lovers and far more intimate. I don't mean to be crass but get over your Western concepts of sexuality and intimacy, the strain of resisting the comfort we could bring the other is taking its toll on me. I've helped you both to rest, to have strength; it would be nice to receive the same."  
"Carlos, you've been alive----well, forever, you've had a lot longer to get used to this concept. To a fluidic sexuality."  
"And how long have you been alive, sweet Danielle?" Carlos challenged.  
She clamped her mouth shut.  
"What? What did I miss?"  
"Asgardian time passes much differently than Earth time. I spent a year gone from here. I spent several years in Asgard."  
"Why am I getting the feeling that "several" is a euphemism?"  
"Because even I'm not clear on how long I was there. I didn't age but my best approximation is a century or so years. As a Valkyrie we crossed into so many dimensions, into so many worlds where time shifted. I came back to a place I knew and what had been a small twig was a mighty tree, close to a hundred years old. There were times that I spent in battles and with my sister Valkyries where children grew to be adults around us. I think the professor sensed it. As we grow older, it's like we mentally become deeper, wider, like an ocean. He'd known a girl who was a vast lake, she came back the Atlantic ocean."  
Warren smiled. "You know if we could get this under control, we'd be on hell of a team within the team."  
Carlos stepped closer to Danielle and put his arms around her waist from behind.  
"Stop it, what are you doing?" Dani demanded but didn't resist.  
Warren grinned and stepped closer, resting his arms around Carlos' back. "Doesn't this feel like what it feels like in our heads?"  
There was a silent agreement between them all.  
"Home," Danielle mumbled, feeling both of their heartbeats around hers, the warmth and firmness of their bodies.  
"I didn't know I'd missed you both until I found you," Warren admitted. "I don't know what that means."  
"I suspect we are soul mates, united by fate and circumstance as only three could be," Carlos smiled and reached out and touched Warren's face. "Mi Dios, man, but you are beautiful."  
"You're not so hard on the eyes yourself," Warren grinned.  
"This is so weird out loud," Dani grunted. "We're a mutant porno."  
  
"What do you make of that, Kurt?" Amara nodded at the trio several hundred meters away, entangled.  
Kurt looked over. "Bobby mentioned that they'd become some part of a psi rapport. I figured that was why they naturally didn't split up as a team within the team breakdowns. Stranger things have happened in the X- Men."  
"Oh, please! Name one," Amara snapped.  
Kurt hesitated. "One of our number willingly joining the Hellfire Club," he said neutrally then vanished in a poof of brimstone.  
Amara glared at the smoke. Not everyone seemed pleased with her decision. Actually, none of them did. But that didn't concern her. What did concern her was that her Second, Carlos, the Black Bishop had his loyalties wrenched so deeply away from her as the Red Queen. That wasn't suppose to happen. They had made plans.  
Danielle seemed to be the glue between the two men. It would be a shame to do, but sometimes the future predicated the elimination of an old friend.  
  
Peter watched them all. Former allies of his father, rejoicing one last night around a campfire before they sailed off into space on a desperate mission. They'd given him a costume like theirs. Accepted him as one of their own. Hopefully for who he was rather than his heritage. He looked up at the stars, alien to his eyes but felt no fear. He'd sailed on the back of a white wolf for several years of his upbringing. He'd traveled through dimensions, star systems that these people hadn't yet conceived of.  
"You're so quiet," Shan said as she strolled over to him and offered him a cup of cider they'd been able to brew up with the small ship's food systems. "Thinking about tomorrow?"  
"Yes and yesterday. I always wanted to be an X-Man growing up. Knowing who my father was, knowing that he was a hero. Part of me wasn't sure I would ever get here. And then, no offense, but you're all different people than the X-Men I met as a child."  
"That could be a good thing."  
"How so?"  
"Well, you met Storm, Rogue, Psylocke, Wolverine, your father, Havok, Dazzler and Longshot, yes?"  
"Yes."  
"Legends all within the X-Men. They've survived death a hundred ways, a thousand times. Perhaps these X-Men, the Sanctuary X-Men, are to be a Sanctuary for a new breed. New legends. It would be hard to fight alongside legends with your mouth agape, non?" she teased.  
"Yes, I suppose so. Is your brother here with us now? Bobby said there were two of you."  
"Yes, yes he is. He's resting. Holy Mother attacked us directly and injured his astral form, something we did not believe possible."  
"What is that like? I miss my family. I can't imagine what it must be like to have a brother with me all the time."  
"It's comforting at times. His counsel bolsters my concerns. He is smart in ways I am not. Though he was misguided when he had a body, I do share his desire for him to return to a physical form. He deserves it. He's worked hard to be an X-Man in spirit, if not form," she smiled at the ironic nature of her comment.  
"We're all so different. So many things going through our lives and yet we're united, like the tribes of the Savage Land."  
"Yes. I'm sure that when we return to Earth we will visit your people. I have never seen the Savage Land, I would like to."  
"That would be great, showing you my home. You believe we'll get back?"  
"Oh, Peter, we are X-Men verses a mad Empire. They never had a chance."  
  
Battle cruiser Tr'Lar:  
  
"You were wise to come," the Chancellor said to Ari.  
'Though our resources are spread thin, it seemed necessary. You'll note that the spatial distortion occurred first in the Brood System, near their home world and then into this star system."  
"Invasion?"  
"What else could it be? Logically the Brood are aware of the Empire's vulnerability and would seek to destroy our attempts at allegiance with the Kree. They know that they don't have the physical numbers or weaponry to mass an outright attack but to transport in thousands of their number to a system. They would then have to infect each world. Within a month they could possess and entire star system."  
"Yes, yes. I defer to you then on what to do."  
"I've sent out a priority one communiqué to our forces. Very specific requests for a force to destroy the Brood and that moon. The Imperial Guard will be upon the island en force within a solar day." 


	8. Hit Me, Baby, One More Time

X-Men: Sanctuary  
  
Issue # 8 By Kyle Phoenix "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time"  
  
Roster: Northstar Magma Shadowcat Peter Rasputin, Jr. Black Bishop Psyche Paulie Spike Frenzy Karma Chamber Nightcrawler Iceman Talisman  
  
Sanctuary Town, Australia:  
  
Alex Rosten and Emma Frost stood at the edge of a cliff side looking down a ravine.  
"Are you positive?" she asked him for the third time, he only answered in a sharp grunt. "You're right, I am being tedious. So we know for sure that this chunk of land with the X-Men aboard appeared over the Sanctuary base. Magma used her earth powers to knock it in a westerly direction as it began its rapid descent towards the ground."  
"Agreed. IT's sensors and satellite feed show the X-Men and a small ship using their various abilities to prepare the island for a landing. The fact that they stayed aboard the chunk of land suggests that there were lives at stake or something volatile on it."  
"Lives. I sensed minds but it was too fast, too indistinct to be specific. A large group though. Hundreds perhaps. Maybe more. Their improvisation literally came short as the island touched down about half a mile from here, slid the rest of the way and then toppled off of this cliff."  
"It did not hit the bottom."  
"Obviously," Emma said dryly. "Taught you command of the obvious in your other postings?"  
"Again IT's sensors picked up another spatial disturbance which would be the island disappearing, however linking through world satellites did not detect it reappearing anywhere," Alex mumbled, ignoring her latest barb. He'd learned that was what Emma did. Barb after barb.  
"There are three possibilities. One, they're all dead," Emma said flatly.  
"Optimistic woman, are you?"  
Emma continued. "Realistic. Two, Nightcrawler's team that went to South America did find the alien problem he referenced in his message to Archangel, and they're now off in space. Third, they were transported through time, which is highly unlikely as there was no temporal distortion for IT to pick up."  
"So they're in space? Seems to me that they have been moving about fairly rapidly for the past few weeks, they have barely all set down here a moment before being whisked away."  
Emma chuckled. "Makes you glad you're not an X-Man, eh? They get snatched out of their honeymoons on occasion. I suspect that upon closer examination of the records of the ship following the island, we'll find it was Shi'ar in origin. This means a renegade of some sort. By them being gone again, I would surmise that they've gone off to the Shi'ar Empire, which means the death of us all."  
"Excuse me?"  
"Charles' mad sister ravaged a galactic Empire before I had the foresight to make her into a PDA," Emma smiled. "You should really do your research on the current debacles that I solve."  
"Ah. Of course."  
"That Empire now considers us a living virus. Mutants did after all wreck the whole bleeding lot of them. Cassandra introduced telepathic madness to billions. I suppose they're still eating each other's flesh."  
"Delightful."  
"If the X-Men reveal themselves within the Empire, the Empire or at least some vengeful faction will come and bombard this world with weapons we can't even spell."  
"Ah. I see."  
"I take it then you have a plan?"  
"Of course. A small delegation to find our erstwhile X-Men and prevent them from turning this end of the galaxy into Vietnam. My goodness, I am going to have to check the references on your resume, Alex--- -your problem solving skills are simply polyester."  
"As always, Emma, I'm wounded and enlightened by your words at the same time," he snapped.  
"Finally someone who knows what my tirades are most useful for!"  
  
Brood Moon, Shi'ar System:  
  
"Ok, which is scarier? The fact that Paulie carries his IPod in his costume or that Hunter was able to patch it into the audio system for Shi'ar ship surround sound?" Danielle laughed with Shan as they watched their fellow X-Men dance around the bonfire they'd built on the shore of the beach the ship was parked on. The hazy purple tinged night and the multiple moons in the sky lent a strange energy to the X-Men who understood that they were both celebrating the unity of their Sanctuary team for the first time in weeks, including their new additions as well as a warrior's party for the battles that were to come. Danielle found the tradition familiar to her people.  
Well, except for the part with Paulie standing on a storage container dancing to a P. Diddy/Notorious B.I.G rap song, spouting each word at the top of his lungs. The man had a contagious joy and charisma that had several of them up and dancing. Cecelia several feet above the ground, using her plasmic field as stilts, Amara dancing in a way that had several of the men admiring her flame tinted beauty, Kurt teleporting around the camp in an acrobatic thrill. Like a weird but happy troupe, they were, Danielle thought to herself with a grin. She had to admit that what had in the beginning looked like a lame team was shaping up to be a force to be reckoned with.  
At first she didn't recognize the wisps, the thin smoke trailing upwards but then she understood it was the haze of Death. Some of them were going to die but Death wasn't being specific, wasn't showing her who exactly and she found Warren and Carlos' minds immediately reaching out to hers. Comforting her, seeking what had alarmed her and then their vision enhanced enough to see the haze and they made their way to her side.  
"What can we do?" Dani whispered.  
"We'll make it, all of us. We've come too far," Warren said optimistically but his emotions betrayed him. The dread, the fear.  
Carlos looked down the hill at the Brood Town, encased in Talisman's mystical shield. "Within there are children and transformed adults that some of us must help. Even if we lose friends, those people are the greater good."  
"Spoken like a pragmatist," Dani chided.  
"Time has made me that way. I'm sorry."  
They both turned to Warren who was giving off deep feelings of worry. And a deep sense of confusion over the loss of his wings and his lack of concern about them. Suddenly he felt useless to this team without his mutant power and at the same time there was this deep conviction that he had done the absolutely right thing letting Meridian take away his power, change him.  
"When we return to Earth, we will find Meridian and the answers to what she did to you, Warren," Dani swore.  
"I know. I'm confident that even if we don't go looking for her, she'll find us. Meridian isn't done with us. Not by a longshot."  
  
Madripoor Isle:  
  
Sabine, a slim Eurasian woman tactfully stood in the doorway as Meridian sat across from a table facing Viper, Prince of the Island and her military generals and several members of the government cabinet. Seemingly a small framed woman, she was instead Meridian's bodyguard which was of course unbeknownst to Viper and her military grouping. It was also a cleverly crafted secret that Sabine was a metamorph who had lead the mutant marauders in a battle that had decimated what little had been rebuilt of the island to ambush the X-Men.  
"I'm obviously worried," Meridian said calmly to the assemblage. "The X-Men have a history of trashing wherever they've been. I'm bringing a lot of money, resources and even manpower into this country. Will the X- Men constantly be waging their mutant wars here?"  
Viper smiled blankly, she'd been having meetings for the past week with all of the major crime syndicate bosses and industrialists who did business on Madripoor, answering exactly the same question. "The Marauders are dead. And the mutant Sabine, the X-Men were fighting, has vanished from custody under their power. Dead I would expect. Then the X-Men took their leave. I could press having them all come back to face charges but we run the risk of yet another conflagration. Your weapons factory is important to us of Madripoor. To me, personally, I am committed to bringing forces of strong economic power to my isle and I give you my personal word that those resources will be protected."  
"I hope so," Meridian said coldly, pretending to be unsure when in fact she was silently calculating how long it would be before the X-Men returned to the island. Her plans could only come to fruition if the X-Men not only returned but set up a base on the small isle. Of course Viper would have to be replaced as Prince of the Island but that part of her plan was already in motion.  
"Thank you for having this counsel with me before pulling out. That matters a lot to me," Viper said curtly then stood and with a twist of her ring, vanished in a teleportational flash.  
The generals stayed behind for another hour going over factory designs Meridian had for her weapons factory and then left, leaving Meridian chuckling to herself. She was lying to so many different people about so many different things that she was amazed she remembered it all.  
"Tea?" Sabine said, allowing her metamorphic powers to shift her body to a less plain slip of a girl and back into the muscular female Sabine that had fought the X-Men and been in custody.  
"I've had enough tea for my lifetime with those negotiations in Japan. Is Shaw still there?"  
"Yes, madam. He seems to prefer the Pacific Rim to operate his business from these days, as well as the Hellfire Club matters."  
"And our target? How is our target?"  
"Alive. I've thoroughly studied the floor plan of the mansion the target is at. At your word, I will open several of the Marauder crypts and take a team."  
"Beautiful. Mr. Sinister really does make wonderful clones, doesn't he? Go now, Sabine, I'll be fine here. Besides, I shouldn't be traveling in my condition," Meridian grinned, rubbing her slightly swollen stomach, her child moving gently inside.  
  
Japan:  
  
The X-Men had failed him.  
Natsume Shikibu stood next to a tree, dressed in dark leather watching the Hellfire Club mansion in the valley below. He'd been coming here for almost a week now, carefully studying the security around the gilded mansion. He owed a favor to an old friend for letting him know what had been occuring behind this seeming private clubs' doors all these years.  
Ultra-rich mutants bent on controlling the world with their wealth.  
Was there no end to the hubris of mutants?  
Within those walls though lay his target.  
Channel. The man/entity that had claimed so many lives and because of his genetic status been taken in by the Hellfire Club. One evil protecting the other. But tonight that would come to an end.  
Shikibu pull on his mask and pressed several studs on his sleeve and vanished.  
  
Sebastian Shaw had a weakness for cognac after dinner. He considered it a weakness because there had been several times when business was to be discussed and he'd found himself wanting his usual cognac more so than to make money. After years of clawing his way to the top, such a tradeoff worried him in a silly way.  
He had taken his dinner alone, Selene having decided to sup upstairs, on what or whom, he didn't want to know. But they had been civil to one another yet maintaining their distance, still unsure as to what had transpired weeks ago. Had she launched a strike against his life or he against hers? And what of Lady Amara, their new Red Queen?  
The fact that Selene had stayed in the Japan Hellfire Club mansion was her right as the reigning Black Queen but suggested that this scheme of hers wasn't done yet, that she had other machinations in place, whirring along under his nose. Shaw smiled grimly to himself, in another life Selene would've been the perfect wife, colder and darker and more Machiavellian than even Emma Frost could be. Under his obvious concern was also a taste of erotic interest, she was quite the opponent, always slipping through being either victim or aggressor but managing to gain the benefits of both.  
Deliciously delightful.  
The door opened and Shaw smiled broadly. Things were looking up.  
"Roberto DaCosta. I see you got my message."  
Roberto DaCosta, formerly Sunspot, looked cautiously around the large library then entered, standing between Shaw and the flickering fire place. "I was in the East on business."  
"Yes, the Murasara deal. Excellent skill there. I was tempted to take a run at that company myself but I didn't think I could penetrate their board. I was impressed at your tenacity."  
"Much like my membership here, it was more about strategic alliances than one controlling the other. Taking control of my father's companies after his death has taught me how to deftly manage and acquire without having to destroy companies and their employees. You could take a lesson from that, people are much more loyal when they know that their boss cares and isn't just trying to control them."  
Shaw nodded. "Of course, Roberto. I wouldn't dream of trying to control you like I did your father. I actually respect you and what you've accomplished."  
Roberto sneered then sat down across from the Black King. "What do you want, Shaw? I'm not in the mood for catty games, my father's membership passed on to me but I'm not thrilled to make impromptu meetings with you."  
"You didn't attend Lady Amara's coronation," Shaw chided.  
"I was ill."  
"Feeling better?"  
"I was made ill by the invitation. I had hoped that I would be the last New Mutant to be lead astray into this infernal club."  
"Roberto, Lady Amara made such a bold, thoroughly unconventional bid that I awarded it to her for both her moxie and potential. She is literally a volcano that is best surrounded by her equals than allowed to run free."  
"I don't think you have the power to contain Amara. In fact it might be interesting to see you try to herd her, a lava bath would most certain rid all of us of your "charms"," Roberto snapped.  
"I didn't invite you here to trade barbs, Roberto. That I swear. I invited you here for----," Shaw checked his stop watch, "the above."  
There was a loud crashing sound and several gunshots from the floor above. Roberto jumped to his feet and Shaw raised a restraining hand.  
"Listen, Roberto and all will be answered. A policeman seeking to apprehend the killer Channel has just broken into this mansion, Selene's suite, to retrieve the mutant entity. He brought several devices with him over the past few days to set up a specific inhibitor field. The field creates a tag on those here. Myself. Selene. Channel. But not you. Until his appearance, Selene probably didn't notice she was powerless. She does now and Mr. Shikibu is learning that a hellcat stripped of all weapons is still a hellcat."  
There was another crash.  
"So you want me to stop him?' Roberto was incredulous. "Call your guards! I am not your lackey."  
"No, not yet. You see, Selene was not aware that I have Channel," Shaw reached into the side of his arm chair and took out a fist sized glowing green globe. "However I needed a fresh mutant to house my newest lackey and more important a mutant who controls a billion dollar fortune. Amazing how I coincide a hostile takeover of your life as well as company at the same moment, isn't it?" Shaw grinned, tossing the globe to the ground, shattering it, the emerald force with darting at Roberto. Before he could react, Roberto felt his mind being attacked. "Both Murasara and Channel are too valuable to be allowed to linger in the hands of another. And you, Roberto...well, I always cherish bringing another worthy member into the Inner Circle."  
Channel laughing throughout his psyche, smashing effortlessly through all the psi shields Roberto had learned as a New Mutant, seeping into his soul, gleefully vicious as he shoved old fears and terrors into the forefront of Roberto's thoughts to weaken his resolve. Roberto had no choice but to scream and then relent, down on one knee, finally, to surrender.  
  
Selene heard the whining sound that the teleportational field gave off as the dark clad man appeared in her room. Was the entire mansion under attack? Or just her? No matter. She commanded the rug, the armoire, the chairs to become spikes and impale the intruder and nothing happened. Having been alive thousands of years, it was a deep shock to her to be rendered powerless so effectively, completely unbeknownst to her but that same extended life had taught her to always have another option.  
Sorcery.  
She began an incantation even as the man open fired with a handgun. The bullets slowing in her vision as her spell took effect and then she became aware of several objects in her room. A small pouch in the far corner. A sign drawn on her windowsill. A potion soaked string on her door. She screamed in frustrated rage and fear as her spell collapsed under the counter-spells that surrounded her. She kicked backwards frantically but still took a bullet in her arm.  
The dark clad figure stood over her for a moment. Then turned and went to her bedside, opened the drawer and pulled out the mahogany box that contained the essence of Channel. She watched him, panting, bleeding but not wanting to antagonize him further. She was at his mercy. It had been a millennia since Selene could see her own mortality held in the hand of another. But the fact that he'd come for Channel and not slain her directly, suggested she might see the sun rise.  
He turned and looked at her one last time then vanished in his teleportational field as the Hellfire bionic guards crashed through her door.  
"Too late, clods," Selene hissed. "He's off with his prize. Get me out of here. Now!"  
The guards complied and once over the threshold, Selene felt her mystical senses returning, the bullet popping from her wound at a simple thought. A maid rushed over with towels to stop the bleeding and Selene smiled, grabbed the woman's hand and drained her to dust in less than a minute. The guards backed away as Selene rose. No one dare offering her a helping hand, a wolfish look in her eye, a satiated smile on her lips. She'd been hurt in her bed chambers, only many levels, she was still hungry for life force. These incompetent guards would do.  
"What is the meaning of this?" Shaw demanded as he came down the hallway.  
"I believe that the law enforcement agency interested in Channel, infiltrated us twice. Once to place mutant and mystical counter measures to me around my suite and then just now to steal Channel back. They seem to be taking having him a prisoner to heart," she chuckled, her bare toes plodding through the remnants of the maid, her eyes sliding from the terrified guards to the Black King.  
"This affront will not be tolerated," Shaw said darkly. There was movement behind him and Selene glanced over his shoulder.  
"Roberto DaCosta. I didn't expect you to grace our halls so soon," she purred.  
Roberto blinked at her for a moment, seemingly confused then shrugged. "I was here on business with Sebastian but I see that you both have created a web that I want no part of. Good night, Shaw, Lady Selene."  
For split second she almost sensed......something from him but then his thoughts were hidden behind those infernal mental shields Xavier taught all of his pups. She could break through them but to what gain? And in her weakened state, she needed to feed, it didn't sit well with her to know how low her power was within in the presence of Shaw. He could reach out and snap her neck and she wasn't sure what kind of a defense if any she could mount.  
The two Lord Cardinals watched DaCosta huffily leave the hallway and Shaw smiled. "Perhaps we should see this in the broader scope, Selene? Roberto made tentative inquiries to joining the Inner Circle. I believe Lady Amara's ascension has brought a lust for position in Mr. DaCosta as well."  
"Really? Good, we can always use more in the Inner Circle but back to this attack. I will not be attacked in my home, Sebastian! Your ways are far less---conspicuous than my rage would be. Let's find a way to retrieve Channel, he possesses both power and potential for the future," with that, Selene vanished in a twinkle, gone from the mansion and across the countryside, secretly no longer feeling safe for the night anywhere that those not completely loyal to her knew of.  
"That he does, Lady Selene. That he does," Shaw grinned, proud that he'd accomplished so much in such a short span of time. He checked his pocket watch. Fifteen minutes, three mutants under his control and close to three billion dollars. A personal record, really. Emma Frost would be proud of him.  
  
Sanctuary Base, Australia:  
  
"I take it you're Alex Rosten?"  
Alex turned around and smiled at the enchanting young woman in front of him. "Monet St. Croix. I thought you might be one that Emma would call."  
"Her and I share many similarities in abilities and character," M stood confidently in a stylized black and white X-Men uniform. She walked across the living room where Emma was sitting in a lotus position across from Gateway. Both had their eyes closed and were in a deep trance. "I sense that they're focusing on creating a deep psionic rapport. Why?"  
"Emma believes that both she and Gateway touched the X-Men on a telepathic level before they vanished again. Emma believes that like a computer, she created a back up memory of a psi probe of them when she helped anchor them back here. And that Gateway, whose power was accessed by Talisman, has a link to the young woman."  
M nodded. "And if Gateway's power doesn't perceive space as distance, no matter where in the universe Talisman may be, Emma can help him track her. Inventive."  
Emma's eyes flickered open; she seemed dazed for a minute then her eyes focused on M. "Thank goodness someone else has had the foresight to re-design their uniform. Perhaps we should all simply solicit Northstar to change them for the rest of the team. Xavier has such an S&M hidden streak."  
"Good to see you as well, honored teacher," M smiled.  
"Thank yo---," Emma started.  
"I was talking to Gateway," M cut her off.  
"Bitch," Emma grinned good-naturedly. "Good, I need one with power behind the five of us."  
"Five?" Alex asked. "Who else did you call in? The Hulk?"  
"Close. But tougher," rumbled a baritone from across the room.  
"Oh, yes, my seat mate on the Blackbird," M nodded as Alex turned and faced Cain Marko, the Juggernaut.  
"Cain," Emma Frost smiled coolly.  
"Emma," he replied evenly.  
"Alex, if you're coming along you might want to drop the Gucci leisure look and get one of the X-Men battle suits," M said off-handedly. "You're bound to be shot at where we're headed. And exactly where are we headed, Emma?"  
"The Brood home world, that's where Talisman's mystical trail leads."  
  
Shi'ar Space, "Brood Moon":  
  
Cecelia came from the back of the Shi'ar cabin shaking her head doubtfully.  
"Another problem," she announced to the assembled X-men, all of them clearly worried for their leader, Archangel. "From what I can tell from Warren's bio-chemistry, this Meridian chick changed it. Accelerated it. I would hypothesize that she is able to alter a mutant's bio-chemistry radically, probably to her desires. By changing it, she made his form incompatible to his wings. So the wings were rejected like a bad organ transplant, how she knew to insure he would stay healthy is probably another by-product of her power. Then from that point, she altered him further. Those alterations have been taking their time. I expect, she didn't expect him to leave Earth, perhaps even another dose of her ministrations is necessary."  
Dani took a deep breath, ready to hear the worse. "Is he dying?"  
Cecelia shook her head. "No, no, no, Dani, I didn't mean to give that impression. Sorry to sound so grave, it's just a radical thing to see happen in someone's chemistry. Our body chemistry, outside of radically changing mutants I suppose is pretty static. Arms, legs, head, chest, heart----it's like I'm looking at that usual jigsaw puzzle re-thinking it's arrangement. I'm also limited, I'm a doctor not a geneticist. The Beast would be better at dealing with this. But the Shi'ar medical database, particularly since they are an Avian based race, was like having top flight scientists over my shoulder. Warren will be fine but he's changing, inside and eventually outside."  
"Changing how?" Kitty asked.  
"Well, from what I've been able to gather from his descriptions of when his wings first sprouted as an adolescent and the medical scans, Warren's mutation wasn't his wings, per se. They were an offshoot of his mutation. I would say that for his bone structure and musculature being so avian-like were the mutation itself and the wings the natural evolution of that mutation but again, I'm a layman to mutant biochemical changes. I'm going out on a limb but I don't think his mutation was his wings or other avian characteristics. I think his base mutant ability is much broader."  
"A metamorph?" Nightcrawler nodded, having had some experience with them, his mother, Mystique being one.  
"Exactly. Now I have no idea why he chose to manifest as a bird. Maybe sub-conscious connection or liking or idolizing-----that gets into genetic pre-determination and actualization----are we as we are because of our genes and our parents or a combination of environment as well. But he's stuck with that, which if we stop looking at the avian aspects as being his mutation makes him a rather redundant mutant. It is kind of weird when you think about it that his abilities had to be augmented by Apocalypse to take another leap but I'm willing to bet all that was done was tapping into his genetic potential and mixing an outcome. He's a metamorph who stopped when he reached puberty in the longest transformation in mutant history and then Apocalypse jumpstarted it. The metal wings mottled and under them were the natural ones that he'd originally started with-------a genetic regression. The blue skin was again him progressing and then going lily white again was regressing to his baseline. I'm positive that Meridian has done another jumpstart--------now into what I have no freaking idea, I do know that he's going through it again though and I can't speculate as what he'll become. Or even if he will become, he may genetically lack the kick start to use this ability which is why it takes outside genetic interdiction to manifest this ability."  
Carlos spoke what they were all thinking. "Meridian seems to be an extremely dangerous and valuable mutant. If it took someone like Apocalypse with his advanced technology to do what she did with----------," he hesitated for the right word.  
"Fucking," Paulie offered and there was an audible groan. "What? We were all thinking it!"  
Carlos continued on. "She is extremely powerful, a godling of sorts to mutants. She could literally create an army of mutants with any powers she wanted."  
"Maybe that's what she's doing. It explains why Sabine was so powerful, so multi-powered. Meridian must've augmented him/her with the range of powers we saw," Psyche said. "I would think though that Meridian either has a power limit or a plan that she's staying within the confines of. I'm worried about Warren and what her real plans could entail, we don't know if her augmenting allows her to control her transformed."  
"He's resting now, he should be up in about an hour, I gave him some vitamins and nutrients to help stabilize his system but we all need to be aware of the fact that he's now a pressing need to return to Earth. To be stabilized by Meridian herself. As gross as it sounds, she's not done re- painting his genetic canvas."  
Talisman voiced another group thought. "And he did this willingly? He still has no memories of why he would subject himself to such experimentation? I'm more concerned with that, frankly."  
"Again more mysteries than answers," Cecelia nodded. "I recommend we all get a good night's sleep before casting off tomorrow."  
"G'nite, Jon-boy!" Paulie chuckled.  
Oh for goodness sakes! Chamber laughed.  
  
Frenzy stood outside of the shuttle, having walked up and down the beach a dozen times. She'd volunteered to be on the small squad that was in charge of security, of watching the Brood Town. She looked up at the multi-mooned sky and wondered how much further she would travel in her lifetime, she'd already come to the other side of the galaxy. Being so physically large and powerful had forced her to run away from home at an early age and that had lead to a life of crime and foolishness until Apocalypse had found her. He'd never bothered to tamper with her powers, simple maturity brought on more increases but the mention of his alterations to Warren made her wonder where she had fit into all of his plans. Simply a foot soldier? Was that all she was worth to men like Apocalypse? Magneto? Prof. Xavier?  
She spotted a shooting star and was about to make a wish when several more descending comets joined it on the horizon and then sharply veered towards the beach.  
"Uh oh. Trouble!" she shouted and activated her comm link an instant before the first figure rocketed past her, the sonic boom ringing her ears as the wake of his flight knocked her into the under brush.  
Nightcrawler appeared on the beach and barely had time to disappear as bolts of energy surged from another of the approaching comets at him.  
"I count five descending!" Nemesis shouted over her comm link, having been patrolling the skies.  
"Oh, goodie," Frenzy muttered standing up and turning just as the figure came to a stop and flew back towards her. He looked like Superman but she had a pretty good idea that he wasn't. Conqueror or Roman? They'd reviewed files on the Imperial Guard and he'd been in them.  
"You are in Shi'ar space, X-Man, that means instant death," Gladiator said glumly, came to an instantaneous stop and socked Frenzy so hard she opened her eyes again, half a mile down the beach, her comm link squawking with X-Men.  
Above the waters near the beach she could see a scout ship similar to Hunter's descending and firing at her teammates below. There was also shock troopers coming from the under brush from behind them, obviously a back-up raiding party. They were surrounded.  
  
Talisman moved quickly through the jungle, half running, and half flying through the thick leafy brush as she heard energy bolts and the sounds of mayhem behind her. She, Dani and Warren had discussed this possibility that they would be found out. What she was to do should the moon come under attack.  
Chamber was waiting at the edge of Brood Town with Hunter, a small shelter having been built onto the edge of Brood Town full of supplies.  
It sounds bad, Chamber said as she climbed up to the shelter.  
"Imperial Guard?" Hunter asked.  
"Yes, I saw several of them landing on the beach. Also there was some sort of military squad coming out of a ship and I think ground troops from the north side," Talisman said. "But I wasn't followed. My spells around the island would prevent them from finding it easily."  
"Then we must go to Plan B?" Hunter said grimly.  
"Yes, Plan B," Talisman said and raised her hands in an intricate dance of jabs and thrusts, slaps against the air, as she murmured spell after spell. The Brood was still unconscious and the town was encapsulated within her shield but this next feat would impress even her. For a moment everything seemed to tremble and vibrate, then colors swirled around the island and she dropped to her knees completely spent.  
It was daylight.  
"Did it work?" Hunter asked, fumbled on his flak jacket from his chronometer. "It worked. We are five days into the future."  
My God, woman! Chamber said, helping her to her feet. Time travel! Is there no limit to your powers?  
"Not time travel, I simply cast an illusion around us, around the town. We shifted for a moment out of phase with the moon itself. And now we're back. I don't think even I'm capable of time travel by myself, without proper training or guidance from another more experienced mystic. This was just hiding the peanut under a shell while everything passed over us," she said weakly.  
The three of them slowly made their way to the beach where the shuttle and the X-Men had been. All that was left were scorch marks, torn trees and ground, obviously where a vicious battle had taken place.  
"Did they get away?" Hunter wondered aloud.  
We'll know in two days, mate. If they return on the week schedule, they're alive. If not, they were killed and we're on our own, Chamber said and all three looked up into the sky.  
  
Planet Nima, Shi'ar Space:  
  
Kitty calmly walked past a group of aliens, waited until they were a dozen feet beyond her then phased through the ground into an underground room. Paulie came out of the shadows and hugged her and she let him. It had been a harrowing few days.  
"I was worried," Paulie murmured and then the lights came back on and Northstar, Iceman, Karma, Spike and Nemesis all looked at her expectantly.  
"Thanks, Paulie. Really. But we've got to hustle. I found the ship that brought the attack force to the moon. The Tr'Lar. It's a battle cruiser. Perfect size to hijack for our needs."  
Karma opened up a portable Shi'ar handset. She clicked in a few commands and came up with the Tr'Lar. "I've got it, Kitty. It will be a doozy to steal. Several Imperial Guard are still aboard, there seems to be a security screen for some kind of summit."  
Spike nodded. "The Empire had its ass kicked by Xavier, they need allies and to look strong before they get jumped again."  
"And we're going to steal a battle cruiser they probably desperately need," Iceman said darkly. "It just doesn't seem right."  
"Ignore Drake, he thinks that the chamber of sleeping children on the moon should die," Northstar grunted.  
"That's not what I meant!" Iceman snapped. "There is no easy solution to this, each way people get hurt but I wouldn't expect that to matter to you, you've been a terrorist before!"  
Northstar turned, his fists balled and a sword flashed between them. They both turned to Nemesis who stood guard by the door but she hadn't drawn her sword. Instead it was Kitty.  
"Look. I know this is a really fucked up caper and that everyone is feeling pulled by the short and curlies but I don't have time for this bullshit. We're stealing a battle cruiser, we're evacuating the moon, if Liz's time illusion spell even worked, and we're hauling ass back to Earth. Once there the two of you can beat off all you want!" she growled.  
The room was silent for several long seconds.  
"I'm not quite sure you meant "beat off"," Nemesis said flatly. It was the combination of her somber tone and the comment that started the peal of giggles around the room.  
"Whatever," Kitty chuckled. "Storm never made these linguistic mistakes!"  
"Of course not. So, Drake, when we get home, want to beat off with me?" Northstar grinned.  
"You'd enjoy it too much! Sorry about that terrorist crack."  
"You were right, it does give me a different----harsher perspective but I am not unfeeling for the Shi'ar. This whole situation is the X-Men's fault indirectly and I'm a bit frustrated with the fact that we have only ourselves to both blame and depend on."  
"Welcome to the big leagues," Spike sighed. "So how do we take over this ship? They aren't going to just let us all waltz in, are they?"  
  
Madripoor Isle:  
  
Meridian stood on the terrace of her beachside estate, her fingers tingling with her mutant power, calling out to her creation. Calling out to Warren Worthington and yet he hadn't come. It had been close to a week-- ---the longest one of her converts had stayed away was three days-------- this was untenable. And worse yet it threatened the future, she thought mournfully as she rubbed her belly-----she was at term, only willpower keeping her child from being born. She'd been using several illegal drugs and two telepaths to keep her from going into labor. Of course the fact that the drugs were difficult to come by and the two telepaths were being keep sedated in her guestrooms broadcasting a low psionic wave to keep her from giving birth. Technically she was almost in her tenth month though she'd gotten pregnant weeks before but she needed Warren for the final meta- gene mutation sequence.  
Playing with the X-Men had been a risk. She'd watched them for years, Xavier for years before that, staying off of his mental and eventual Cerebro/Cerebra machine. There had been close calls, especially her creation of her elite mutants like Sabine. Forcing them to maintaining normal, clandestine lives, some not even allowed to use the powers she'd invested in them for a decade. Snatching Archangel, one of Xavier's first pupils had been a risk, a higher risk than she'd taken in nearly her entire life. But he so perfectly fit the genetic parameters for what she needed done-----such untapped potential and from all that she could glean from the minds of his students and even Xavier and his precious encoded files, unknown potential. She had always wondered if Xavier had known of his precious Angel's potential would he use his genetic knowledge to boost Warren into his true mutant abilities. Apocalypse had recognized it instantly and done so-------almost destroying one of her greatest potentials. Wolverine she would've had to kill to use his meta-gene. The Beast was going through such metamorphic flux that she wouldn't even dare trying to absorb his material. Warren, stunted and beautiful was the prime choice.  
"Madame?" Sabine said, in masculine form, came out onto the terrace and took his mistresses arm and helped her sit. "You should be resting. You are at such a tenuous point."  
"I know, I know, you old hen!" Meridian chuckled. "I was a fool to let him go, to trust him to return. But I thought that my hold and his word were sufficient bondage."  
"The Marauders are ready to go. We have confirmed the target's location and are ready to move."  
"Damn it, Sabine! If you kill her before the birth------."  
"Then give birth, Madame. We have plenty of mutants here to provide the security we need as well as the power to control all of the assets and the island."  
"I'm not going to have any choice, my bio-chemistry will affect the child the longer it's present in my womb-----it may destabilize the matrix. And without Warren we'll need an Omega level telepath-----are you and the Marauders prepared to waltz into Xavier's mutant farm, at least two hundred of them there, and pull him, Phoenix or Cassandra Nova out within the next twelve hours?" Meridian teased.  
Sabine hesitated then spoke. "I believe we may have a viable plan. Have you ever heard of Project: White Egg?"  
  
Thirty Thousand Feet Above the Pacific Rim:  
  
"White Egg?" Alex repeated.  
"Yes," Emma answered coolly. "I have major holdings all over the world, made even more extensive by my ties with the Hellfire Club. Does it surprise you that I would be smart enough to snatch a bit of the Shi'ar technology that has made it way through Charles' sieve like hands?"  
"Actually, I think we're all exploring how such a smart theft could be followed by such a stupid hiding place. Madripoor?" Monet chuckled. "Why didn't you just keep it somewhere safer, like downtown Beirut?"  
"Heh, heh, downtown Beirut. That's funny," the Juggernaut bellowed.  
"Shut-up, Cain," Emma snapped. "When I stole the technology for interstellar travel, I was neither allied with the X-Men, nor was Madripoor being routinely visited by the X-Men. When Khan attacked the isle my agents there acquired whatever they could that Khan's army left behind."  
"In case you needed to try to invade a planet?" Alex snorted. "You are in violation of so many United Nation international laws-----!"  
"Quite the opposite. Defense contracts. Defense and offensive technology. I won't even touch on the fact that my people were only one step ahead of four world powers. Mr. Rosten, I'm sure you know how far many of the nations of the world are along in technology to reach other worlds? The Mars exploration that on public television is actually close to fifty years behind our actual colonization of the red planet? Or the mining currently going on throughout Jupiter, Pluto and several large asteroids? This planet has been visited more times by extra-terrestrials than Dr. Phil has been on Oprah and you expect me, a telepath, to believe that this world hasn't plundered every crash site, tortured ET's for tech and furthered our reach throughout this solar system to a degree that would shock even Mr. Fantastic?!" Emma sneered angrily.  
M, Gateway and Juggernaut turned and looked at Alex, who shoved his hands into his pockets.  
"I take the Fifth," Alex grimaced.  
"It's like the X-Files," M sneered. "Is anyone using this new technology to cure cancer? AIDS?"  
"Monet dear, everyone knows that there's more money in keeping people sick than having an affordable cure. Ask your father----he didn't come by countless millions by being Father Beneficence. I've skimmed a bit off the top. Not anything that was noticeable but enough to give us the ship we need to avert an intergalactic war."  
Gateway burped from the seat behind Emma's and then calmly returned to eating a bag of peanuts. Emma rolled her eyes then they flashed with telepathic energy and she closed them.  
Emma?  
Charles dear, I see you've decided to return my message, she said to the astral image of him in her mind. You look positively peeked, dear? Are those original X-Men who can't cut the apron strings from you proving helplessly lost without me?  
Jean actually cooked us all a scrumptious dinner on behalf of your absence, Charles replied dryly.  
Jean? Is she still alive this week? You never know with Ms. Reincarnation. Tell her I said hello-----no, tell Scott to tell her I said hello. Tell her that not everything she's cooked up tastes bad.  
Please, Emma, to the point, this is severely straining Cerebra and you were supposed to return with your evaluation of the Sanctuary team three days ago.  
It's taking longer than expected, Charles. I'm very thorough and the team is oh, so complex.  
This has to do with the disappearance of the town of San Madre, I take it? As well as the reappearance of the Marauders in Madripoor?  
Charles darling, you put together a dozen odd, extremely odd, mutants, to handle international mutant issues, you're going to have matters that require a more experienced hand. Towns that become flying islands must be dealt with. Think of the real estate zoning issues alone--- --to whom does the real estate taxes go to?-----Argentina, Australia or----- -other places?  
Emma, while I appreciate your humor, you know how sensitive our position is on the global front. Storm's team may've repelled an invasion but between that and Genosha, the international community is beginning to see that mutants are capable of razing a country in small groups. The X Corporation public relations department is fielding inquiries from both the North and South American governments.  
We could always tell them which of the current living U.S. Presidents is a mutant?  
That's a problem for another day. Cerebra has you on your way to Madripoor? Yet I don't have any of the other Sanctuary team in range. Please explain.  
I realize that Lilandra's trip down fruit bar with extra nuts lane has left you with an inordinate amount of free time on your hands but some of us can manage without the Professor sticking his mental nose into each mission. It's well in hand. Warren and Kurt have their teams well in hand and I have management of the situation well in hand. Charles, I have to tend to the disparate personalities on my staff. I'll call you should the world end and only your prowess can save us all.  
Please do, Emma, Charles grimaced but she could sense his thoughts already flitting away from her and her small group.  
"Oh, my, were you just called to the proverbial principal's office?" Monet chuckled, her own telepathy having picked up the conversation that had occurred in the space of a second.  
"Yes and it's all because of you and my other assets in Madripoor not being ready to launch," Emma snapped.  
"Did I miss something?" Alex asked.  
"Telepaths. You always miss something with them. Trust me, I know sneaky," Cain rumbled darkly.  
"I left in the middle of a mission to come and ride an airplane with you, lady, don't get snarky with me. The other girls are in a pickle by my leaving early!" Monet hissed.  
"Other girls?" Alex asked.  
"A ship and two of my assets who are involved in a delicate operation to protect Project: White Egg and the mansion grounds I own on Madripoor. It's really an old tale. There were once three beautiful girls who didn't quite work out the other places they'd been. So now they work for me. Emma. Emma's Assets."  
  
Madripoor, High Town:  
  
"Our timing is so off. We trained for this as a team of three. As two we're off our mark. We need her! And I'm the first to not want to admit that."  
"Did you know that your nose crinkles up when you're angry?"  
"You are getting on my nerves, girl!"  
"Sorry, ma'am, forgot you're our team leader."  
"I have the experience."  
"Pfffft! Frostbite recruited you third."  
"Emma bailed you out of that Mexican jail on assault charges from your attempts at being a bounty hunter."  
"I was damn good."  
"You nearly attacked the country's President."  
"He was wearing the same cologne as the guy I was hunting and if I remember correctly when you came to help me resolve the debacle, you broke a cop's arm."  
"He looked like one of the ninjas."  
"He was naked!"  
"Ninjas bathe! I can't believe I'm trapped in working with a rank amateur like you. You're a walking disappointment who couldn't cut being part of a normal team."  
"Weren't you like beaten half to death and back more times than I can count? Didn't you start having combat anxiety?"  
"You're an unmitigated, unrepentant cunt."  
"Didn't your mother try to kill you?"  
"No one ever liked you."  
You've got boxy hips, a low brow and an odd smell."  
"And that drinking problem you had in Istanbul? The hashish in Amsterdam?  
"That was a mistake but at least I bathe regularly!"  
"To wipe off all the men leaving their-----!"  
"Shhhh. Here she comes."  
Viper walked over to the two female scientists, both prim and non- descript, their faces covered in large glasses and their hair pulled back in severe buns, both clearly in their late forties.  
"Will she be here or do I simply take possession of this entire facility? You do realize that is the right of the sovereign Prince of Madripoor?" Viper said icily.  
"Yes, Madame Viper. Ms. Frost is en route, our assistant is bringing her directly. We understand your concerns," the first woman smiled.  
"Yes, we do understand your concerns. All of them," the second nodded eagerly.  
"Have we met before?" Viper asked suddenly, inspecting both prim women.  
"I doubt it, I was just put in charge," the one on the right answered.  
"Yes, she was just put in charge," the one on the left agreed.  
Viper began to scrutinize both carefully when the far bay doors opened.  
"Clara, Sara! Tell me you haven't been boring Viper with your dull little scientific dramas?!" Emma Frost said as she was followed in by an entourage of employees. "I take it you're here about Project: White Egg? I thought Frost Industries was guaranteed free development practices on your isle for that handsome leasing fee I pay you?"  
Viper turned around and faced the White Queen, decked out in colorless fur and grinned, the two squirrel scientists forgotten. "You of course understand that this project must now fall under national interests?"  
"Should I use a corporate or private account to rectify that matter?" Emma said dryly.  
"This facility takes up a lot of manpower, resources and acreage on a very strained populace. We'll have to review everything here. Those monthly reports you've been giving my minister of finance are both humongous and vague," Viper said.  
"And how is Mr. Ng?"  
"Dead."  
"Ah. I see. Well, I guess we can---------IEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" Emma shrieked and collapsed to the ground.  
"Emma!" Alex said and grabbed her before she had completely collapsed.  
"Something is horribly wrong. All around us, can you feel it?" Monet murmured her own, not as powerful, telepathy feeling like it was being pulled by a nearby force. Suddenly her eyes flashed with energy and she grabbed Emma and flew out of the factory towards something she could only think of as The Call.  
  
Brooklyn, New York:  
  
He hated security detail. Watching boats being loaded, trailers coming in full of merchandise, maybe watching a corner restaurant for someone about to make a hit. You made your bones and you ended up a glorified security guard, Rocco thought to himself. There were always bumps and bruises in the road, incidents that almost started wars but for the most part, the Underworld was like corporate America except that violence was allowed. The flare ups never lasted long and there were rarely massive power shifts. But the Mafia had made a new recruiting decision.  
Mutants were in.  
Which was why Rocco was standing out on the docks at this hour. His mutant ability to sense changes and make them visually, electronically and psionically invisible to others was what him so valuable as Sentry. Sure, he got a bigger cut than any other mook on the job because right now there were a hundred invisible men robbing several government warehouses blind and all that was able to be seen was Rocco standing in a security guards uniform smoking a cigarette and leaning against a fence.  
"Hey, cutie!" Donohoe grinned as he walked over.  
"Oh great," Rocco chuckled at his partner for the caper. Donohoe was flamboyantly, unabashed gay and would've never been allowed into the Mafia if not for his psi abilities. Right now he was acting as back up muscle in case the military guards stationed around the warehouse ever became aware of the theft going on, literally right under their noses.  
"I've walked the perimeter four times. No one is the wiser. That's a pretty nifty power you've got there, cutie."  
"Yeah, I just have to make some sort of contact with the place or the people and then I can canvas a whole city block. I covered the last Don meeting you know. We had it in the middle of Times Square, no one was the wiser," Rocco beamed proudly.  
"Yeah, I heard that. In fact that's what got my bosses interest?"  
"Delmonico? Delmonico was there," Rocco said confused. Everyone knew that Donohoe worked exclusively with Delmonico.  
"No. my.....other boss. We're creating a power base within the organization, without giving in to flatscans."  
"Oh, really?" Rocco's interest was picqued.  
"Yeah. But see we need your boss on the hook to the Feds. We need these raids to go sour so that our mutant squad is needed more and more.  
"Hey, I'm not gonna turn on my crew for you, Donohoe!" Rocco said, standing up slowly, his eyes shifting back and forth. Then realizing that other than himself there really was no one to help him against Donohoe in his on crew. They were all flatscans.  
"Oh, we all knew you'd feel that way. Long as you had your crew you can't betray them. Of course after the crew is arrested in a few minutes, you'll have no where to turn but us when you get out the hospital."  
"What----?" Rocco barely got out before the savage telekinetic attack smashed into his body from Donohoe then sent him flying out into the East River.  
Donohoe flipped open his cell phone. "I aimed for the boat. Is he there?"  
"Yes, we got him, Donny," a young woman laughed over the phone. "We'll get him to the hospital in the City right now. You better split."  
"Will do," Donohoe grinned as suddenly all the alarms and government security guards noticed the hundred men who were packing semi trucks. The crew went for their guns and when they snatched them out, Donohoe gave a telekinetic push and what he had been holding together, fell apart. All at once, a hundred guns shattered into component parts. Donohoe sailed into the night air, it was so easy being so telekinetically powerfully that he could hold a lock on all those weapons and still act normal without even breaking a sweat.  
From above he looked down at the warehouse and smiled. Of course his squad didn't want the military easily armed so with a wave of his hand, two hundred tons of munitions sailed out of the warehouse and trucks and followed him off into the night.  
  
Brood Space:  
  
"Is that big fish an Acanti?" Frenzy asked loudly, she was looking through one of the scout ships "bug eyes" harder than steel but clear as glass as the small scout ship sailed closer to a small asteroid field for cover. She had grown accustomed to the particular lenses adaptation feature that enhanced the view by a factor of ten thousand so that the image she was seeing so clearly from the scout ships bug like viewer port, was still hours away at high speed, looked like it was only a few hundred miles. Beyond the asteroid filed were dozens of Acanti, Brood cities housed on their backs and throughout their innards.  
"Ja," Nightcrawler said sadly, old memories, bitter and dark coming to mind from the last time he'd seen one of the majestic but enslaved space beasts. "I guess I'm the only X-Men here besides Kitty who's seen one, eh? They are living beings. Like whales that sail through space and the Brood have co-opted them for living cities and ships. We helped a prophet from their race escape and lead some of his people to freedom."  
"Not all it seems," Magma said darkly. "Are we going to try and steal one? Is that what cured you of the Brood egg in you before, Kurt?"  
Nightcrawler glanced at Magma slowly; he still couldn't find a way to understand her allegiance with the Hellfire Club and had been treating her with a chilly distance the entire two day journey to the outskirts of Brood space. He spoke more to Frenzy, keeping his face turned from her. "We had Binary with us; the Acanti prophet taught her how to purge us. We're hoping to locate an Acanti that can lead us to the Prophet Acanti. For our help, hopefully he would help us again."  
"Well, thank you, Kurt, did contact with a space prophet also eradicate your manners?" Magma turned on her heel and went to the forward of the cabin where the other X-men were discussing the sensor readings.  
"They seem to be massively building up their forces on the other side of the sun. From what I can understand from intercepted transmissions," Dani explained, her fingers dancing over the controls. Warren had taken piloting control while Carlos and Kurt were dividing their duties between weapons and shields, while Peter, his mecha-empathy making him a natural engineer. "I think they are reacting to our appearance a few days ago. We essentially did a fly by of the USSR in a UFO and the Brood Queen is mobilizing."  
Magma calmly interjected her observations. "This is the last thing the Shi'ar need at this point. I've been downloading communication streams from satellites and starship traffic on the Shi'ar. The madness Cassandra infected them with has wrecked their empire; there are thousands of civil wars breaking out. Imagine every country on Earth going to war with each other on the same day. Every state within those countries warring with each other, regardless of country allegiance and each town and so on down to families attacking each other. The only ones that seem to have escaped Cassandra's reign of madness are those that were on the deepest space missions. The Shi'ar Empire is crippled, dead for all intents and purposes and they're just waiting for people to start picking off their worlds."  
"Why hasn't the picking off started, it's been quite a few months since Cassandra infected them?" Warren asked, staring worriedly at the Brood war force in the distance.  
"I would put it down to fear. The Shi'ar have been one of the big three on the space block for awhile---including the Kree and Skrull----it's still a bit of a shock that they're crumbling. I would also say that their Imperial Guard doing strategic strikes at enemies, without mercy I might add, has kept everyone gathering intelligence and watching and allowing them to destroy themselves from within," Dani answered.  
"Ok, group, suggestions on how we can accomplish our goal here and not make this problem worse? Maybe even help these poor people. This is after all partially our responsibility," Warren said heavily, he'd been awake almost non-stop since departing the moon San Madre was on.  
"Lilandra is supposedly mad so they have no leader. The Shi'ar need a leader and that would deter a lot of the external attacks for a time, maybe give them time to cure the madness. But to cure the madness we need a telepath of Charles' level to start healings. I suspect the Shi'ar are doing this but a disease is easier to spread than a cure," Carlos offered.  
"I think we're losing focus. We can't help and Charles and Cassandra's souls are probably damned for this mess," Magma interrupted sharply.  
"How could you say that!?" Kurt gasped.  
"Oh, grow up, Kurt. Run your lack of parental figure issues in therapy but this is people's lives. Millions," Magma snapped.  
"We have to help! Isn't that what being an X-Man is all about?" Peter said passionately as he came out of the engine room.  
"Oh, please, Peter, we're talking solar systems here-----multiple worlds here that are infected with this madness. We haven't been shot out of the sky because the Shi'ar are spread so thin they don't have the resources to notice us and the Brood don't care unless we actually interfere with them. When one Empire sees another as dead, trust that it is!" Magma snapped.  
"How cold!" Peter accused. "There are real people being killed over this!"  
"I didn't see you slitting those sleeping babes throats to spare yourself this foolhardy mission? We haven't even ended mutant bigotry on our own damn planet and you want us to wrack our brains to save a galaxy? Piss ant!"  
"Amara!" Warren scolded.  
Dani shook her head. "She's right. We have to focus. We don't have the resources to save this galaxy. We can only pray that the outcome of this mess stays away from Earth. Sometimes all you can do is circle your horses."  
"I'm picking up an interesting transmission from the Brood central Acanti to one of the younger, more mobile ones. They're ordering it to the planet Xevan which is about a day away from here at high speed. It seems to be a priority even more than the San Madre Stargate spotting," Carlos said trying to scroll through the English text on his viewer screen.  
"We should've brought Hunter, we're not qualified to operate this crate even after his crash course," Dani muttered. "Ok, I've called up Xevan from the database. It's a medical research planet----I think the Shi'ar colonize planets and then focus each one on a particular industry. Xevan could be helpful to us."  
"There's another option. I don't think any of you will like it though seeing as I've become the "dark" X-Man," Amara sighed, glancing out the viewer screen.  
Kurt took a deep breath and glared at her. "Amara, you have made a questionable alliance. I was there the first time there was a new Red Queen, not just your alliance but having Carlos within our fold, doesn't bode well. I'm not accusing either of you personally of anything but there are powerful forces within the Hellfire Club, I don't want to see the X-Men corrupted by that."  
"You've been at this how many years, Kurt? Maybe you needed to have made alliances years ago to bring mutants and humans together," Carlos offered.  
"Let's stick to one monumental task at a time. Amara, your idea?" Dani interrupted.  
"While Hunter was on our planet, Storm's team staved off the invasion of the Earth through Madripoor. I looked through what Hunter was observing. He has the exact dimensional frequency to Khan's dimension and if any of you had read Storm's report on the Khan invasion there were links to the Shi'ar Empire as partners. Khan is dead. Our Earth is off of his empire's list. But what about this Shi'ar Empire being shored up by that dimensions?" Amara suggested calmly.  
"Are you insane? You're suggesting we set up a crippled empire to be taken over by its alternate dimension counterpart? Are you stupid enough to believe that this will be a bloodless invasion?' Kurt roared.  
"Did you read Storm and Sage's reports?" Dani asked calmly.  
"I didn't have the time---I went there to help them and then there were other missions---," Kurt stumbled. "I know that Storm's team repelled the invasion force on Madripoor."  
Warren had steepled his fingers and was watching Amara through them. He spoke evenly, "What she's suggesting is a "white knight". It's a business term for one company saving another from complete collapse."  
"I know I'm new but I have to agree with Nightcrawler, how can we be sure they won't just enslave these worlds that are so fucked up? And is anyone looking further down the line? A Shi'ar Empire that effectively doubles in size overnight? Earth is so screwed," Frenzy said.  
Warren glanced at Dani and Carlos, their thoughts already having touched his own. He looked back at Amara who was watching all three intently, she'd learned quicker than the others that a triad had become the leader of their team and she paid attention to their silent cues amongst each other. They weren't as experienced as most telepaths at hiding or at the least being discrete about their psi rapport.  
"Amara," Warren started, "this is your ball. How would we go about making contact and insuring we get them to do more helping than harming?"  
"How long to Xevan?" Amara asked.  
"About a day's travel," Dani said her hands flying expertly over the control panels. "Can you make contact and get us someone high enough up the food chain to negotiate with?"  
"I can try," Amara smiled eagerly, while she knew that her Hellfire Club association and powers made her valuable, she knew that she'd need more. More influence. And if she happened to make an alliance to further her own agenda while chatting it up with Khan's Empire, then more the glory.  
"Warren, you can't allow her to go through with this!" Kurt pleaded. "This is wrong! Khan's forces were only repelled because our teammates nearly died. This is not a decision that can be taken back once the door is opened!"  
Warren spoke. "Kurt, we are looking for ways to save billions of people, to put a band aid on what Prof. X/Cassandra did. I've also got to weigh that the Skrull, Kree and Brood are watching the Shi'ar for permanent collapse. From a galactic point of view, the Shi'ar have kept the universe balanced. What happens when the Brood get word that the Shi'ar are no longer capable of mounting any defense? They will infect the millions left, thereby massively increasing the size of their forces. The Kree and Skrull will destroy whatever is left and all of this shit will spill onto Earth in some shape, form or fashion. The X-Men have spent years not finishing what we started, not fixing what was hemorrhaging but the Sanctuary team will be different. And if that's not reason enough for you, then I call the shots on this team. This ship. You don't. Argument over."  
"We have one last issue, Warren. Peter and I have been working on a way to disable the Xevan defense network for the few hours it will take us time to go down to the surface. Hopefully we'll be ahead of the Brood forces and other mounting, during the time the defense screen is down, Xevan is open to being attacked. We don't want to add to their problems with someone trying to take over what's left of their world," Dani explained.  
"As I'm no longer--------viable for combat unless necessary. I'll manage the ship and keep the defense screen down and protected. I'll hold the door while the rest of you rob the safe," Warren said soberly. 


	9. Baby of Mind

X-Men: Sanctuary Issue # 9 By Kyle Phoenix War Part 2 "Baby of Mind"  
  
Roster: Archangel Northstar Magma Shadowcat Peter Rasputin, Jr. Black Bishop Psyche Paulie Spike Frenzy Karma Chamber Nightcrawler Iceman Talisman  
  
Orbit of the Planet Nima, Tr'Lar Battle Cruiser:  
  
The hardest part of stealing a starship wasn't what would seem to be the most obvious. Due to the Shi'ar crisis the battle ship crews had been reduced by ninety percent which meant that eight mutants taking it over would be easy to overpower the crew. The hardest part was turning into all of the redundancies and simple busy work around a Shi'ar battle cruiser.  
Spike, slowly crawling along the outside of the hull in Shi'ar workman space suit, was beginning to doubt the little smartass known as Shadowcat. She didn't know this Kitty kid and though she was obviously a technological genius and some sort of quasi ninja (how many ninjas did that make in the X-Men?) Spike wasn't sure she liked her being in charge of this mission. Stealing a ship seemed almost as simple in theory as stealing say a car and Spike had cousins who could steal, strip and sell the pieces of car back in the Bronx in ten minutes flat. The fact that her illustrious career had been tanked by being outted as a mutant and she was starting to have no say in the matter of having to stay with the X-Men was a constant irritant to her. Frankly, she thought most of them sociopaths with psychotic tendencies. How could you peacefully co-exist if you were always fighting? And who the fudgesicle deemed Xavier as their herald? Smart, bald, telepath those were not messiah requirements to her.  
She glanced to her left and sure enough she "shadow" was present--- Tran, Karma's brother, easing along with her as they made their way to the navigational array. According to Shadowcat she could deactivate most of the tracking devices from inside but that the Shi'ar ships had a redundant triangulating system built onto the outside of the hull. Essentially there was a forward part of the hull that was constantly telegraphing its location to the Shi'ar deep space satellite system. Once they took off in the ship there would be no time to do this work, they would have to stop the ship. Here in space dock was the most logical time to do it.  
Logical being a matter of perspective, Spike thought bitterly.  
Tran hand signaled her that there were people ahead. Shi'ar repair teams working on the ship itself. His intangible body, able to be almost completely transparent, was like an outline of a form in space, if she didn't know he was there, she would've completely missed him. They couldn't bring energy weapons to disable the repair team and destroy the transceiver so it was up to the tow of them to handle both. Spike felt the familiar tingle of her psi field extending from her fingertips, seeping it slowly along the hull until it enveloped the two man repair team. Before the could react Tran materialized behind them and became Shan who was wearing a spacesuit, the physical place that she vanished too obviously allowing her to take her direct against her skin clothing with her. In the blink of an eye, Karma's psi power flashed on enrapturing both the minds of the repair team. Spike pulled back her field and signaled twice on her gauntlet to her teammates within the ship.  
  
With a gasp, Iceman reformed within the engine room, his entire body having re-coalesced from moisture; he'd only done this stunt once before and he could barely keep his wits about him. On one hand he felt hyper charged, physically elated at what his power allowed him to do and on the other, as he fell to one knee, drained. He had seen video schematics of the small storage room he'd moved into but he hadn't been entirely sure he could do it before. He didn't so much of teleport like Nightcrawler did as he moved along molecules, moved the entirety of his consciousness from one point to another. He'd started in the transport vehicle that brought supplies up from the planet up to the space dock that the Tr'Lar was stationed at, acting as a spy to observe security codes to be relayed back to the others. It was almost like holding his breath. Something Kitty had talked him through, explaining her phasing process and then Karma had possessed him lightly, clicked something in his head. Or unclicked something. Maybe the fear of no longer being human or even existing. Holding himself in the stasis of almost nothingness, giddily watching the world around him, people, molecules sparkling.  
He had no doubt that Professor Xavier had extrapolated his powers possibilities. Had he ever elected to let Bobby in on what he could do? What he could really do? All these years as a snowball and then just an Iceman and now there was something bigger, something much more to what he could be.  
"You here?" a voice said above him.  
"Yeah, just a second," Bobby focused and his body became more and more solid, he hadn't realized that what had originally felt like total solidity to him, wasn't. First he was ice and then human, flesh and blood again. He held his own hands, the sensation of not being real to his own self wasn't something he thought he could deal with. It felt like death. Like melting. And so much fear was built up at being an ice man and getting flamed to a puddle.  
Shadowcat floated down from the shadows of the ceiling. A ship's uniform on and a satchel over her back. He had to admit that she had the right amount of sneakiness and savvy to lead their group in this, despite the fact that he was older than her.  
"You ok?" she asked looking at him oddly. Then she reached out and touched his shoulder, he grabbed her hand desperately for a second.  
"I—I wasn't real. I was floating through everything, not phasing but I could move anywhere that air was, that water was. Is that what phasing is like?" he whispered, almost hysterically.  
Shadowcat grabbed both of his arms, to both ground him and get a deep look into his eyes, see if he was going to fall apart on her. It made perfect sense now why Prof. X hadn't pushed Bobby to the fullest extent or actually natural progression of his powers. Manipulating moisture, slowing down their movement to freeze was so simple and yet at the same time elegantly complex. Karma had used her possession power before to help a mutant actualize his powers in a much more refined, advanced way but he hadn't had his whole reality changed. Was Bobby's sense of self too fragile to be so fundamentally changed?  
"We have a problem," Shadowcat whispered into her comm link as she pulled a trembling Bobby into the shadows. This storage room was several decks below the hyper drive engines which would've put them in the perfect spot to hijack the controls once the other confirmed their work done and Kitty had the codes that Bobby has watched others put in. He was the only one of them capable of a form of invisibility. But could she risk leaving Bobby alone? What if someone found him, he couldn't defend himself.  
"Is it Drake?" Northstar said over the comm link.  
"Yes," she answered. "He made it but he's a little freaked. I think Karma's little tune up wore off the longer he was out of phase or whatever you would call it."  
"Sliding," Northstar said and Shadowcat's foot spun out of instinct nearly connecting with his head. Northstar stepped aside at super speed as if she'd been standing still, a smirk on his lips. But she could see the gleam of appreciation in his eye, she'd almost caught him. "I would call it sliding. Especially as he seems to have psychological issues with not being flesh and blood. Simplify it for the ice cube."  
"I thought you were supposed to stay by the other engines?" Kitty said, not used to working with speedsters but glad that Northstar knew how to be as sneaky as her. Bobby was holding her data pad typing in the codes he'd witnessed the crew members using. Kitty looked at the pads, everything seemed in place, there would only be one shot to use the command codes to take over the ship and move it out of space dock.  
"We'll switch assignments; I'll take care of Drake. I have experience with traumatized mutants in the field,' Northstar said, hefting Bobby from her. "Go. We don't have time to lose."  
"Gone," Shadowcat said, stuffing her data pad into her satchel and then melting back through the wall.  
"I—I'm sorry," Bobby said as he stood up, unsteadily by himself. "I can still do this. It's just more than I thought it would be to reassume my form, physically taxing."  
"You do seem to be taking some quantum leaps in your abilities in the past few weeks. I can't help but to think, finally."  
"I feel like I'm coming apart at the seams, it's like every time I ice up I feel almost a rubber band now, pulling me further to do more. I keep wondering if maybe I'm not strong enough to push myself this way, you know?"  
"Mon dieu, Drake, you are such a whiny little thing," Northstar sighed.  
Bobby was about to snap back but then he saw Northstar was actually smiling so he chuckled. "Well, I know you were impressed, right? Tell me you were impressed."  
"While it took you a much shorter time than it did me to get aboard the ship with Shadowcat, phasing through the hull, I must admit, it has a certain panache."  
"Well, I stuck by the captain and I got her security codes. Let's get to re-routing the engines, this mother is soooooo ours. We should name it Blackbird----no, no---Starbird, that sounds nice," Bobby grinned moving towards the back up computer consoles.  
  
They never had a chance.  
Shadowcat materialized through the floor of the Bridge, stun gun in one hand. She shot two officers and solidified her fist long enough to punch another. Two more engineers on the Bridge tried to react but Shadowcat was racing to the environmental controls. She typed in several codes, telling the ships computers that there was an emergency oxygen problem on the Bridge. She waved and slipped back through the floor down to another computer console where she was already tapped into the entire ship's controls.  
Transporters.  
Very nice, Shadowcat thought as she located the twenty odd crew members on the ship and two more outside of the hull. She gad rerun the calculations a dozen times in her head while waiting for Bobby to give her the last command codes. She had confirmation that the crew members were captured in the matter dispersal stream and now she aimed the triangulation beam at a storage room in the space dock. Now came the hard part. She had kept a small portion of an anesthetic in stasis in the storage room. Release it with one button so that the room filled up with the knockout gas. And then re-materialize the crew members.  
She'd aimed a few feet above the floor to be sure. It would be a bumpy landing but for her inaugural use of it on so many lives, she was proud that she'd gotten such extensive training from Xavier and then her own studying when trapped aboard a Shi'ar ship as a hostage.  
"Spike?" she called over her comm link.  
"We're here, Kitty. I disabled the locator and the two technicians suits were pierced right before they vanished. Are they ok?" came back Cecelia's wobbly voice.  
"They're fine," Shadowcat said far more confidently than she felt. "Paulie and Nemesis have confirmed position."  
"Ok, I'm signaling Tran now. He's on his way."  
"Good. I'm opening an outer airlock. Should be about twenty meters to your left."  
"I see it, I'm coming in. Oh, thank God. Staring out at limitless nothingness was starting to freak me out," Spike sighed. "This shit is getting to be a bit to much for me. At least you guys didn't have Casper the Asian ghost floating next to you as a reminder that death was nigh. Did I say nigh? God, I'm starting to talking like Dr. Magneto."  
Shadowcat chuckled as she cut communication and phased back up onto the Bridge. She looked around and grinned.  
Then sat down in the Captain's chair. It felt good.  
  
Space Dock:  
  
"Ok, do you have a plan?" Paulie asked Nemesis.  
"Well, it seems that he has orders to stay with the captain. If we are to remove her then we must remove him. We're lucky that they're outside of the ship. Our greatest concern should be not breaching the hull. This space dock is nearly as large as Manhattan borough but Gladiator can survive in space in definitely," Nemesis said calmly. The two X-Men were walking on parallel walkways from the captain and Imperial Guardsmen's small group that was heading out of meeting.  
"If he gets back on the ship, the others are sunk."  
"Agreed. Hold on a minute, I'm seeing something emanating from the Guardsmen next to him. The one with dark hair."  
"That would be Smasher, super strong. They must be really concerned about the old dude they're escorting back and forth to these Kree meetings," Paulie offered.  
"The gauntlets on Smasher are emitting an anti-gravitational field. He's using them to emit a low level force field around them."  
"Shit. Now what?"  
"We may be able to use that to our advantage. Follow my lead," Nemesis threw off her dark cloak and sailed across the walkways that were above the plaza below. She waved her sword and a flash of brilliant sparkles flew to encircle Smasher whose outfit vanished from off of him. Startled, Gladiator hesitated in moving and Nemesis slammed into him, using the flat of her sword to attempt to shove him. However, having regained his composure, he simply did not move. Nemesis snapped her leg out and kicked the Chancellor off of the walkway. Gladiator's eyes bulged in surprise but he reacted as expected and dove after his charge.  
Captain Ari reached for her hand weapon and found a hand over it.  
"Hi. I'm Paulie," he said as he crushed the metal in his hands, his hands radiating with garnet energy from the attached gauntlets. "Took me a second to understand what mask girl was hinting at making your boy go starkers but then I realized if he could use these handy dandy gauntlets then so could I. Which means I can kick some serious ass now. Which way would you like to go flying, babe? I'm handing out ass kickings."  
  
Madripoor Jungles:  
  
"You can of course explain why you hurled me at the ground at close to a hundred miles per hour?" Emma Frost asked calmly, sitting on a rock staring at M.  
"Do you feel it?" M said calmly looking out of the brush at High Town below.  
"Feel what?" Emma sighed.  
"The psychic shift. Something swept over the island. I snatched you up right before the wave happened."  
"In my diamond form, I have no telepathic powers. Which I would suppose is making me invulnerable to whatever you're sensing telepathically. If I revert to my human form, do you think I would be in danger?"  
"Yes. Something swept over the island, like a pulse wave. I saw it seeping into the minds of everyone around me. I thought if I moved fast enough and got you to react instinctively I could get you to protect yourself with that diamond form."  
"And if I hadn't of turned to diamond before impact?"  
"I've worked through having new teachers after attending so many schools."  
"Almost efficient enough to be ruthless and yet at the same time, quick thinking if you're right. So I, the one with the most skill to use telepathy am now trapped in my diamond form or I'll be subject to this "pulse wave" you sensed creeping into the minds of others. And you, the least experienced with your telepathy are blocking this pulse wave from co- opting your mind like every other being on this island.....how?" Emma asked dryly.  
"I am right. I'm always right. I think it has something to do with the perfection of my mind. I perceive things through my own opinion, my own unique perspective. Whatever has taken over this island is.......different than that. Or maybe like it. I don't know. I'm.....afraid to push my telepathy too deeply into the wave I sense everywhere around me. I don't think it knows we're not under it's control yet."  
"Is that right, dear? So preparing to rescue the missing X-Men we have stumbled into another drama. Wonderful. Then we should get off of the island. We have no allies here-------wait."  
"The others! They were wearing their image inducers!"  
"With the psi screens. They should be unaffected."  
"That makes four of us then."  
"Plenty to take back an island, no?' Emma grinned.  
  
Xevan orbit:  
  
Dani sat next to Peter, occasionally her eyes flickering to his enraptured face. He was using his mecha-empathy to link the ship's computers to several of the medical databases on the planet below. At first she hadn't noticed it but when he was using his powers this way she felt like a telepathic buzzing at the back of her brain. She'd noticed that her own psi senses had become much stronger since her linking with Carlos and Warren. She suspected that Carlos' psi powers were bumping her own up a notch and she'd noticed a propensity of both of them to eat more, in huge quantities, much like she noticed Warren's avian physiogymy made him do. While she could distinguish her thoughts from theirs easily she felt like their instinct's were merging, Warren's making her more detached, watchful before acting and Carlos' more pragmatic, ruthless to some degree. That ruthless was making her see Peter as incredibly valuable.  
Peter turned, his long dark hair sweeping over his shoulder, his features much like her Native ancestors, he was a dazzlingly handsome man in a very rugged way and she smiled at him. For a moment he stared at her blankly then he broke into his goofy grin. "Hi, Dani. Sorry about that. It takes a moment to shift my thoughts from the ship and the computers. I never tried to link with such sophisticated metal before but dealing with this ship.........Shi'ar technology is friendly."  
"Friendly?"  
"Yes. No. That's not what I mean. You know what I mean."  
"No, tell me," she was genuinely interested. They'd taken him into the fold so quickly, so abruptly without getting a full sense of what he was capable, what even he knew he was aware of doing.  
"Well it's like every metal thing around me kinda glows a little, is a little brighter than plastics or organic material. This ship is the first time I've tried to see inside that glow, not just push it like I normally do, to make it do as I want. The onboard computers showed me how the Shi'ar technology makes relationships between solids, like metal, and energy and from there it was easier to think of metal as energy. I can talk to the computer faster than using my hands or touching it because I'm just picking up its answers faster so we skip to things, through steps faster. That small spark of energy is transmitted information between metal, I just attune myself to the same-----it's like a frequency—as the metal and listen. It's kind of the same way with the Xevan computers below."  
"And what have you learned? About a Brood cure?"  
"Most of their doctors and healers are working on eliminating the Psi Virus, the mental madness. I found lists of several hundred people they've been able to rid of the Brood infection, it's a gene re-vitalizer. Like a healing machine, somebody found out that if you put it on high basically it restores a person's natural and perfect cellular origin."  
Dani quickly made the connection. "We could use it on Warren?"  
"Maybe. I didn't want to say anything until Dr. Reyes looks at it. I can understand what a machine or computer is for and what it's doing but that doesn't mean I understand the science of how it does something."  
"So you can build and take apart a car in your sleep but you have to learn how to drive like the rest of us?" Dani smirked. "Nice to know that you won't be the resident egghead."  
"No. There are no eggs in my head," Peter shook his head quizzically. "Do you think the Brood put an egg in my head?!"  
Dani sighed. "That's not what I meant. It's slang. Back to this re- sequencer, how can we get our hands on one?"  
"It's at a medical complex. They were using it to heal people hurt by the psi virus. From what I get through their databases, the world below is under martial law. It's the only way they've been able to save their world. Since the Shi'ar Empire hasn't been able to send aid they've been either killing people or forcing them into the further edges of several of the main continents. I don't think they'll last much longer."  
"Ok, then I'll lead the way team down there. Carry on----------that didn't sound right on sooooooo many levels," Dani grinned as she stood up and walked over to the communications station that Amara had been working at diligently for the entire trip. "How goes it, Amara? Contact with Khan's Empire?"  
"Oh, that was the easy part, Dani. The hard part was working my way through their hierarchy to find someone with decision making power. It seems that each reality Khan conquers, he left a council. The person in charge of this dimension spanning uber-empire seems to be Vice Admiral Kriss. I've given him an outlining of our basic plan and he's reviewing it."  
"What's your feeling on the situation? Will they cooperate?" Dani asked, though she was actually watching Carlos, Warren and Kurt looking out the viewer port. They were looking at schematics of the Xevan medical base that Peter has transferred from his console to be projected on the ten foot high lens.  
"Storm was a fool for not becoming that man's Queen," Amara sighed.  
"Only the enslavement of the planet Earth, Amara. That's all she would've had to agree to."  
"I know, I know. They seem a tad....pushy. I think they're running the numbers on co-opting this sector of space. The Shi'ar seem to be their allies in the other realities. The question isn't will they, the question seems to be can they? They are very concerned about the Shi'ar Psi Virus, they are considering the fact that that alone makes our reality dangerous to the integrity of their empire."  
Frenzy walked over and shook her head. "I can't believe the goody goody X-Men are considering turning over their former allies to an evil empire."  
"Evil is such a strong word," Amara said neutrally. "The X-Men in name, at the very least, are responsible for the upturning of not only the Shi'ar Empire but also Khan's demise. At some point unless both of these peoples are soothed they will come and obliterate us. It's a matter of eventual survival. And avoiding their rightful vengeance."  
"You might be interested in this transmission of galactic news. It seems there's a battle going on in the Nima space dock," Peter hollered from his console. "They're transmitting live to this entire sector. I think you might want to see this!"  
Dani hurried over. "What could be-----Great Spirits!"  
  
Nima Space Dock:  
  
"PAULIE!!! Spell it, bitch!" Paulie said and slammed his fist into Gladiator's stomach and then brought down a savage blow to the Imperial Guardsman's jaw. A deep crimson energy radiating from his hands and eyes, Paulie lifted Gladiator above his head, flying over the plaza below and hurled Gladiator to the ground.  
Captain Ari reached for her pistol to shoot the hovering, glowing X- Man from behind but found a blade at her throat. Nemesis snatched away the gun and leaned in to speak to the Shi'ar battleship captain.  
"We X-Men have a problem. I've gotten confirmation that we've acquired your ship as our own, now we just need a suitable pilot. Someone, to in a sense, captain, the mission. Now the choice was to get the command codes and control the ship before making this offer to you. The next option, is to lop your head off and find your second in command. We don't want to keep your ship, just borrow it for transport."  
Ari slowly considered her options. These mutants were considered more dangerous than anything she had normally faced in her two decades as a captain but there had always been their honor and loyalty. One of them going out of control and betraying Lilandra and the Empire could be isolated. No one was completely sure exactly what had happened, all those in Xavier's path had been driven mad. She would be risking that and possible execution for aiding the mutants. But how could she let them take her ship? Use it, the masked woman had said. Perhaps she could regain control or even obliterate them in deep space away from the endangering so many others. Giving one's life in service, dying in battle in a few moments was easily thinkable but perhaps having to bide her time to kill herself and these mutant monsters, was making her hesitate.  
Ari nodded minutely. "I will help you for the interim but only if the fighting stops."  
"Agreed," Nemesis said and slammed her fist into the back of her head knocking her unconscious. Nemesis quickly threw the woman over her shoulder then hurried towards the airlock.  
Paulie, his body surging with power dove down and slammed into Gladiator smashing their way down half a dozen levels. The gravity gauntlets, belt and ankle lets, stolen from Smasher, seemed to somehow feed off of Paulie's own mutant power of invulnerability. He thought that maybe the pull he felt from the gauntlets was that they needed a physical grounding and created a feedback loop that turned into power. He'd have to consult Kitty on that hypothesis. Right now he was reveling in kicking ass. He punched Gladiator again and again, each blow augmented by the gravity energy and his own invulnerability. His mission with Nemesis had been the toughest, kidnapping the Captain without having Gladiator on their trail. Blow after blow hammering down onto the semi-conscious Guardsmen, Paulie thought they'd succeeded with flying colors.  
Gladiator was on one knee, his body and faced bleeding. Paulie knew that this man was one of the good guys but that he would act out of duty to stop the X-Men and with his invulnerability he could simply fly after them once they took off with the ship. In Paulie's view that meant that Gladiator had to be put down. Left alive, but put down all the same. It was no coincidence that he and Nemesis, the two most capable of the hardcore level of brutality that was needed to put him down, were on this branch of the mission. Paulie had considered it for awhile how to most effectively stop Gladiator. Logically, he would heal fast, Paulie thought he could see the blood stopping already----that meant it had to be more destructive to the will power that drove the Imperial Guard leader.  
Paulie activated his comm link. "I've got the ace down, we need him out of the deck."  
"He's on his way," came Spike's reply. Paulie looked up at the panicking station, they didn't have much time to shove off before the security got organized and came after them.  
My, my, most impressive, Tran said in his disembodied voice as his astral form came flying through the bulkhead.  
"You took care of the tracker on the ship?"  
Yes, I was surprised you called at all. I expected to have to surprise Gladiator, I was on my way. How did you bring him down?  
"These," Paulie held up his hands, the gauntlets glowing. "A perfect fit."  
Wonderful. You find a way to transcend your limits and I'm still a ghost, Tran sighed then a moment later his form began to fill out, shrink and Karma appeared in the flesh.  
"Your brother seems pissed about his situation," Paulie nodded.  
"Wouldn't you be?" Karma said as she placed her hands on Gladiators head and forced her possession power. Immediately she felt the man's powerful psi shields, reinforced by training and she pressed her power against the walls. She was getting nowhere but the plan wasn't for her to. In an instant Tran was waiting behind her hammering and at the first sign of a crack slipping through the wall, his being of pure power, pure thought, his sister his anchor. She sensed Gladiators confusion as he realized that it had been a trick that her attack was merely a Trojan Horse for her brother.  
I have him, Tran said back to her. He is strong. It's taking a few minutes to shutdown his mind without killing him.  
Can you do it? Comatose him for a specified time?  
I believe so. The challenge is creating the wake-up suggestion and hiding it from him. But he uses all of his psionic ability for physical power, his psi strength while enormous, isn't refined. I could-----.  
What, Tran? What's wrong?  
Nothing. I could stay in here, Xi'an. I could have a body. If you let go of me. But I can't stay within his mind, I can't control him unless you let go of my link to you.  
And what would happen to Gladiator.  
Silence.  
Oh. I'm sorry, Tran. Sorrier than you know. But we can't do this.  
I know, sister. But I believe we now have an answer. We now know how to separate me. Find a body with no mind.  
Understood. Time to go, Tran.  
There was a hesitation from Tran's psi-self and Karma focused her psi energy on holding the psi wall crack within Gladiator's mind open. She wasn't sure what would happen if her brother were trapped inside of the alien's mind. She was starting to get seepage from Gladiator's thoughts. There was the threat of becoming a triumvirate of minds but with only two organic brains to hold three minds, Karma knew that someone would die. And she wasn't willing to lose anyone. Not even Tran. I know how badly you want this, Tran. Come back willingly. Please. I need you, our siblings need you. And though Gladiator is weakened now it's taking two of us to keep you there now, he's too powerful for you to hold permanently.  
I know, Tran's deep resignation and aching longing reverberated through her like ice. There was a moment when she felt his consciousness expanding and then she saw Gladiator's hand move slightly. Yes, that was me. I just needed.........to feel......to be flesh a moment. With that Tran sped back up the psi trail back into his sister.  
Gladiator collapsed to the floor, in a deep slumber.  
"Done?" Paulie asked, less than a minute had appeared since Karma had started.  
"Done," Karma sighed, her knees and hands violently shaking. She wiped blood from her nose and tasted it in her mouth. She'd ruptured several facial blood vessels they'd been exerting so much power. For all of her seeming ability she was coming up against the reality that she needed to learn refinement of her power.  
You showed me quite a bit of honor brother, by coming back, by relinquishing your hold.  
Did I, sister? I was more tempted than I hope you ever know.  
Do you regret coming back?  
No. You were right. To try to hold such a powerful mind would've been foolish but the lesson that I can inhabit a body gives me hope. We just need to find one, yes?  
Yes. As sick as it sounds, a mindless one.  
Karma shimmered again and was the astral Tran whose face seemed more soured than usual. He turned to Paulie who'd was still tensed, ready to attack Gladiator again. We'll see you aboard the ship. And with that, his "voice" slightly cracking from longing, Tran flew through the bulkhead.  
With a kick off, Paulie flew back up, the thought of where and how to move, seeming to be all the gauntlets needed and was back on the walkway next to an unconscious Smasher and Shi'ar Ambassador that Nemesis had dispatched with ease once Gladiator was out of her way. Over her shoulder, she had the Shi'ar captain.  
"Most impressive and expedient," Nemesis nodded from behind her mask. "It looks like I was right in deducing that you could use the gauntlets."  
"Fucking A! Time to go bring the kiddies home," Paulie said with a confident grin as Nemesis typed in the captain's codes transmitted to her by Iceman over the comm link and they went through towards their hijacked ship.  
  
Xevan Orbit:  
  
Warren sat looking down at the console screen, he hadn't been allowed to go down with the others to Xevan due to his unstable condition. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Tactically, it made sense. Emotionally, he was torn. He'd been in the thick of so many X-Men battles for years that he thought he was more than just his wings. Without them though, what was he? He wasn't as good a field leader as Cyclops or even Dani or Kurt but he'd been shoved into the job by Prof. X. That was before the team had grown in size and complexity. Could he continue to lead them? And exactly what had Meridian done to him? He felt in the best of health and couldn't even begin to fathom why he wasn't in a depression over the loss of his wings. Maybe it was the rapport with Dani and Carlos, it was like a constant bulwark of strength from both of them within his mind. He felt sharper, clearer headed than ever before. Dani had suggested that it had something to due with sharing their emotional states. Sounded good to him.  
With the rest of the team on the planet below, he was stuck in the ship watching the Brood fleet creeping along their border on one side, reports of the Shi'ar cruiser being stolen at Nima while waiting for the others to beam back up with the re-vitalizer. Kitty's team had done their part but a ship was useless without a way to turn the townspeople of San Madre back to human.  
Then Warren's head snapped around. He'd felt something through the psi rapport. He searched within his mind for the golden mental thread he imaged as his connection to Dani and Carlos. It was still there but fainter now something deeper was yanking at him, something that had torn through space and time to find him. He felt a sharp stabbing pain and heard Meridian's cry.  
Without hesitation, Warren turned to the navigational computer, keyed in the coordinates for Earth and rocketed out of orbit.  
  
Psyche held her psi arrow lightly on her bow, letting it fly and take down another night wanderer. Her neural disruptors seemed to take out the insane populace both the fastest and most gently but she was exhausted from guarding the lab as her fellow X-Men worked on extracting the Brood cure. She'd fired on hundreds of people in the past few hours, her head throbbing from the mental exertion.  
"How goes it?" Frenzy asked as she came trotting down the hall, she'd been walking a regular tour around the building they were in.  
"Magma, Kurt and Peter are the official eggheads on this team, they're in the lab trying to both download a Brood cure and detach this re- vitalizer thing. Carlos is keeping me on psi alert from outside as to our egress and I'm popping the odd nut job that gets up here.  
"Dani, this whole planet has gone insane. I've been checking the world communication systems; this place is on the verge of absolute collapse. This building is empty because of heavy military fighting miles away. This world is a deep mess, it's horrible."  
"I know. I can feel psi impressions, madness almost from everywhere around me. I think Carlos has some sort of empathic ability that is picking this up. The city around us has been slaughtered by this psi madness."  
"I guess you're not thinking pretty thoughts of Xavier now huh?" Frenzy chuckled.  
"Charles didn't do this. His body did. I know that's hair splitting to the billions of people destroyed by this but it's the only thing that keeps me from killing the man myself," Psyche said emphatically under her mask. She'd watched from the ship as Warren had dropped them off, the masses of people, the cities on fire. The fact that they were sneaking in to steal equipment from the neediest people in the galaxy was something she couldn't stomach but had no idea of how to change.  
  
Carlos stood in the shadows of the building watching the city below burn, sensing the madness of the citizens below. Between the press of empathic impressions/thoughts at him, errant and wild and the constant push of the Beast within, he regretted having come down from the ship. He looked at the small, hand held communication device he would use to signal Warren to retrieve them when the others brought the equipment outside. Peter and Kurt felt that the equipment was too foreign and delicate to risk ripping out of the laboratory so that had been at work for nearly five hours, first learning to comprehend the machinery then carefully disengage it. The X-Men were professional; he had to give them that.  
And to some point, he was an X-Man now too. He'd come in as Magma's bodyguard and ally and now he was entangled with Dani and Warren in ways that he suspected only death could shatter. He was acting as an on the ground look out and found himself almost desperate to fully open the rapport to them both, it was near addictive in its reassurative powers. And both his confidence and his exhausted psi talent could've used the boost. He closed his wearied eyes for a moment and found Danielle several hundred feet away in the lab talking to Frenzy, she was tired too, from the constant use of her psi arrows to sedate looters and stragglers that were milling up from the city. They'd been attracted to the shuttle dropping them off, so it had been decided to have Warren stay in orbit to minimize the attention drawn to them.  
Reaching for Warren, though the distance of his being in orbit made the psi rapport fainter he could feel the perpetually pensive man. Since the psi rapport he'd struck him as the kind of man who was always about to do something, like a bird on a bar. Carlos was the first to sense it, the touching of another mind, of another connection, like someone hacking into a computer. Without hesitation Carlos hurled his mind at Warren's to try and strengthen him, defend his mind, defend from the invasion but almost as soon as the connection was firmly made from the fourth party, Warren was gone.  
Carlos dropped his knees, stunned by the intensity of the psi work and reached to activate him comm link to tell the others. If the shuttle was on the move, perhaps Peter could use his mecha empathy to take control of the ship before it got too far away. Before he could move a hand grabbed him from behind.  
"Ah. You are the psi, yes?" a gruff voice said. "The scryer told me about you."  
Carlos twisted, clutching the arm and snapped out his legs to kick himself free. The hand held fast and the lack of air started to make Carlos' vision flicker. He did two things at once, mentally shout for Danielle and allow energy to seep from his hands. The resulting explosion separated him and his attacker, he could already sense Psyche, her mind telling him to hold on, she was on her way as he rolled clear.  
"Very good, little man!" the enormous man grunted then lifted a huge axe, about to cleave it through him.  
"Not so fast!" Frenzy said as she dove from the window above and slammed into the man. She'd opted to use her weight and invulnerability rather than her strength in a blow, thinking the man another insane resident. Instead, he casually swatted her away, sending her crashing through the concrete walls.  
Carlos realized that they weren't dealing with a simple Shi'ar being, this man was clearly much more. Psyche came skidding around the corner, psi arrow about to be shot when she saw the man in full view.  
"Great Spirits! YOU!" she shrieked.  
Carlos, struggling to stay conscious felt Danielle's mind open in shock and terror and form two words, two words that were both odd and shocking to him when he tasted the emotion behind one of them before he lost consciousness.  
Marat.  
Husband.  
  
Frenzy got back up, dazed by such a suddenly shockingly powerful blow, she charged back outside and found the man clutching a struggling Psyche. Frenzy didn't hesitate or pull back this time; she laid into him with a blow to the back of his head. He stumbled slightly then tossed Psyche against a far pole, knocking her senseless. Marat chuckled and turned back to Frenzy, chucking his battleaxe from hand to hand.  
"You have a warrior's heart," he grinned. Finally in the surrounding light, Frenzy could see that he was close to seven feet tall, with tightly braided black hair, he looked almost Native American in simply a loin cloth, suede chaps and a shoulder strap for his weapon. "Danielle has chosen her allies well."  
"I also have one hell of a Coltrane collection, but that's not important here. I take it you know, Psyche. I take it you want her. She's part of a team, we don't let people snatch our own," Frenzy said, clenching and unclenching her fists. The axe worried her. Also the fact that this man could track Danielle a galaxy away from Earth, she knew that strength and invulnerability to her blows had to be the tip of what he was capable of. It also was the worst time for enemies to pop out of the wood work. Was he one of the X-Men's enemies? The list was so long, she'd lost track of them all when reviewing files.  
"What Frenzy means is that none stands alone in the X-Men!" Magma said from the window above, her body aflame with molten energy. "Have a care, man, we are not the normal X-Men either. I think we're ready to kill you."  
"The name is Marat, Magma. Danielle spoke of you often. Though not of the ebony woman."  
"Marat? From the Terror?" Frenzy said confused, trying to remember her knowledge of French history.  
"He was named after me. Let us say I was familiar with his sire. Who knew my namesake would be so prolific?" he chuckled. "However, I am leaving with Danielle. She owes me a blood debt."  
"Monsieur Marat, I owe Harrods's a disgusting amount and I will fry you," Magma chuckled darkly, dropping down to the ground next to Frenzy. "We X-Men are not having a good day, a good week, even. Let us part for now and you can return and work this out with Danielle when I am no longer in a position to have to give a damn, eh?"  
Marat laughed. "You are a delightful woman. I look forward one day getting to know you better. But for now!" Marat leapt at the two women, his battleaxe swinging at them. Magma ducked under Frenzy and allowed her to catch his weaponed arm, to stop it and then punch him with all of her strength sending him across the courtyard. Magma followed up the assault with searing lava blasts that engulfed him but his axe seemed to deflect it before he could be singed.  
"Who is this?" Nightcrawler said from a burst of brimstone as he appeared next to Magma, Frenzy already charging at Marat again.  
"I suspect an old ally or enemy of Dani's. He says he's been tracking her, he just attacked out of nowhere," Magma informed him.  
"His axe looks Asgardian, doesn't it?" Nightcrawler said as he bound over to the man who was grappling with Frenzy.  
"That would make sense!" Magma said and focused a small earthquake at the area Marat was in, throwing him off balance long enough for Frenzy to punch him solidly, dropping him to one knee.  
"Enough!" Marat roared, his axe suddenly erupting with energy as he swiped it at Frenzy blindly.  
"I don't think so!" Nightcrawler said in mid-bound, vanishing in a burst and reappearing on Marat's arm, grabbing the axe and vanishing again.  
Marat, Frenzy and Magma all froze for an instant, waiting for Nightcrawler to reappear then after a long quiet minute, nothing.  
"Kurt?" Magma said uncertainly into her comm link.  
"It seems your teleporting goblin has discovered what that axe was capable of!" Marat laughed and kicked Frenzy away. His hands glowed again then Psyche spasmed across the courtyard and another ax appeared in Marat's hands.  
"He's tapping into her powers. Using them along with his," Carlos said as he unsteady ran over to first Psyche and then next to Magma who was considering simply burying the brute but she was concerned that only he could bring Nightcrawler back.  
"Ah. The dark mystic has arisen with passion in his heart for my bride!" Marat chuckled, advancing towards Psyche, the other X-Men in front of him. "You would do well to move out of my way. Only I can recall the axe to bring back your friend. I was merely going to teleport the ebony one away from the battle, not kill her. Instead the blue one took her place. Now I can dispatch with the three of you and take Danielle or I can never call back my axe where your friend is attached to it in dire peril."  
"You will not take Danielle!" Carlos said fiercely, his coat swirling as the clouds overhead began to thunder and lightning crackled. "I claim her as mine. Beyond my alliance with the X-Men!"  
"Oh, my! A paramour!" Marat sneered.  
"Ummmm, this is all really intense but what about Kurt?' Frenzy asked. "I say we split the hair and crack Marat in two and force him to bring blue butt back."  
Marat turned and looked at the three X-Men, clearly not available to the moral conflict he'd thought his offer would put them in. "Then perhaps I was in err." Marat lowered his axe but the sly grin didn't leave him. Meters away Psyche awoke screaming in agony, psi energy erupting from her body in electrical arcs through the sky.  
"What the hell are you doing to her!?" Carlos roared slamming into Marat who batted him away.  
"Danielle is a powerful mind witch and as I am bonded to her and far, far more importantly, I can use her as I like. Don't you hear them?"  
"Hear what?" Frenzy said but there seemed to be a rumbling coming from down the hill. She ran to the edge of the courtyard and gaped in shock. "Holy shit!"  
Thousands of insane Shi'ar citizens were running from all parts of the city towards the laboratory.  
"I have turned Danielle into a flame to the insane moths around her. They will keep coming until she is dead. Trust that I will not kill her. Now all of you are at peril unless I take her back to our blood debt. Choose!"  
Carlos hesitated and the torn look in Magma's eyes told him that she knew as well as he that Marat had raised the stakes higher than they could bet. They needed to get out of here with the re-vitalizer, they needed Nightcrawler safe and returned, they need to get off of this planet. He ran over to Dani and brushed her hair aside, hr could feel a psionic pull coming from deep within her, unwillingly that was drawing the insane to them. But he could also feel her own mind within, telling him to let her go, that she couldn't be the reason why so many were lost.  
Carlos clutched her tightly.  
"I have your scent on me. Your blood is mine. Your spirit I can see. There is nowhere in time or space that I won't find you," Carlos promised then lifted her up and carried her over to Marat. "Stay alive, my Cheyenne warrior. Each breath is a step closer I will be coming closer."  
Carlos kissed Danielle then nodded at Marat. He too could sense the press of insane minds coming closer and closer, there wasn't much time. He wasn't even sure that the X-men could escape themselves.  
"Thank you, little man, you've saved more than just your tribe, you've saved many, many more," Marat said solemnly.  
"Know this, Marat. I will retrieve her. And kill you," Carlos said as he handed the unconscious Danielle to him. "Return our compatriot."  
Marat lifted his battleaxe and across the way another axe glowed. In the moment the X-Men turned and looked, Marat and Danielle vanished, with the man's parting words before the mob crashed into the courtyard.  
"I lied."  
The battle axe appeared without Nightcrawler.  
"Hey, guys, I got it detached!" Peter yelled excitedly as he came out of the laboratory holding a backpack.  
"RUN!!!!!" Frenzy screamed as she grabbed him by the arm and headed into the dense forest.  
Magma shoved Carlos towards the running Frenzy and focused on creating a buttress to stop the mob from overwhelming them. Unfortunately they were insane and thousands, she could feel them beating against the rock wall, climbing it. She decided that retreat was the answer of the day, with a quick thought she reached a hand out and the ground moved the axe that had disappeared with Nightcrawler into her hand, as she lifted herself and Carlos on an earth wave. Catching up to Frenzy and Peter, she scooped them up on the wave and quadrupled their foot speed with only a thought, clearing the forest, almost a mile, in less than a minute.  
"Signal the ship to pick us up! Hurry!" Magma barked at Peter.  
"I've been trying. It's not there," Peter answered.  
"No, they're both gone. Warren left orbit before Marat attacked. It happened so quickly. I don't know. It may've been coordinated," Carlos said despondently, he felt such an emptiness when he reached out with his mind. They were both gone, too far away for him to do anything but feel a slight buzz at the peripheral of his mind that told him they were still alive.  
"So we're trapped on this fucking asylum planet?!" Frenzy said in shock.  
"We have this," Magma said confidently hefting the axe and pointed at Peter, "and him. We will get off of this world and to the rendezvous point."  
Suddenly there seemed to be a gash of energy that slammed down into the far city. The four X-Men looked in shock as dozens of air ships began flooding out of the rift.  
"Who the fuck is that?" Frenzy wondered aloud.  
"I believe that is the Vice Admiral Kriss from Khan's pre-invasion force. I sort of suggested he start to arrive here after we left," Magma muttered.  
"Of course the fact that we haven't left yet will probably make him our friend right?" Carlos sneered; he looked at his compatriots who looked as defeated as he felt.  
"Well, he was supposed to signal us first. I would take it by the fact that there are armed invaders means that he's proven to be untrustworthy," Magma sighed. "Kriss expressed interest in annexing this Shi'ar galaxy to save it. But we weren't nearly far enough along in our discussion for this to occur." She seemed both perplexed by the betrayal and insulted. Carlos was tempted to slap her, she'd brought sharks closer to them when they were figuratively bleeding profusely.  
"I take it, we've done the whole X-men thing badly, huh?" Peter offered.  
"Fucked. We've fucked it up," Frenzy groaned. "And now we're stuck here. Within a couple of days, Shadowcat's group will get to the moon, we won't be there and they'll have no choice but to abandon everyone there. Which will mean she'll head that ship home. We're not even where we originally were supposed to be."  
"Ok, what are our options? Let's come up with some options!" Carlos barked.  
  
Deep Space:  
  
"Where would you like to go?" Captain Ari asked coldly from her bridge.  
Shadowcat turned around in the captain's chair, X-Men all around the bridge. "An apology would seem trite at this point?"  
"Yes, it would. You X-Men have razed the Empire, destroyed the Majestrix and stolen a battleship during a time when the Empire needs every ship from shuttle to frigate to defend its' borders. So, let's not pretend anything but disdain for the other, because I won't be able to fake anything else."  
"Ouch," Iceman said from one of the monitoring stations.  
"She will not be friendly, would you be?" Spike asked from behind the captain, she'd brought her up from sick bay as soon as she'd awoken.  
Nemesis, Paulie and Karma stood at another bank of computers going over the intense lesson's Shadowcat had programmed for them. As she was the only one who actually had been telepathically taught Shi'ar by Xavier, she had the skill and technical knowledge to run the ship but not through a Stargate jump.  
"We need you, Ari. I'm not going to lie to you, I don't know how to calibrate the ship to Stargate and we need that jumping at least twice," Shadowcat admitted.  
"Twice?"  
"Back to Nima to pick up our teammates and several thousand....refugees. Then we have to pick up the rest of our teammates who are searching for a cure for a virus the refugees have. Then we have to jump to Earth and then you and your ship can drop us off and leave."  
Ari looked at them all in disbelief. "All you need from me is that? Taxi service?"  
"Yes," Iceman answered. "What did you think we wanted?"  
"This is one of the finest battleships in the fleet. If we weren't spread so thin, there would be a handful of ships after us. I assumed that you wanted to destroy something, raze a planet. I didn't know what for sure," Ari said uncertainly.  
"We just want to get our refugees cured and back home," Spike said.  
"Kitty, I think I have a lock on Hunter's scout ship. I tried transmitting to it but it jumped into a Stargate," Northstar said as he hit several panels and a schematic appeared on the view screen. "The red object is Hunter's ship."  
Ari stepped to the center of the Bridge looking up at the display. "That Stargate jump will take it back towards your star system. I thought you said you had to retrieve people from Nima?"  
"We do!" Kitty said perplexed. "Can you contact Warren?"  
"Not at this distance going through Stargates," Ari shrugged. "Essentially at such long range we use the Stargates themselves as signal boosters. We will have to be much closer to one to contact him and it may take time, it's a delicate procedure over such a distance." Ari walked over to Northstar's console. She tapped in a few codes. "There is only one being onboard but I can't get more specific than that. I would also point out that in such a small scout ship, the single occupant will nearly be out of life support and power by the time the ship reaches Earth."  
"Which brings up two scenarios," Nemesis offered. "The others are dead and one of our number had no choice but to return to Earth. Or one of our number has been co-opted."  
"Warren and Meridian, I bet!" Spike said. "She could've implanted any kind of homing signal into him with all of the genetic shifting she did."  
"So then where is his squad?" Paulie asked aloud.  
Ari's fingers flickered over the panel again. "Retroactively, the scout ships trajectory puts it in orbit of the planet Xevan. That's odd."  
"What is?" Kitty asked.  
"There seems to be a localized spatial disturbance there from the upper atmosphere to the surface. Almost like a Stargate were being opened onto the planet itself."  
"Ohmigod!" Karma shrieked. "That's what happened on Earth when Khan attacked."  
"Who is this Khan?" Ari demanded.  
"A world conqueror. Actually a dimension conqueror. He takes over whole dimensions whether they like it or not," Northstar explained.  
"We have to stop him!" Ari bellowed, her voice full of anguish. "My people cannot take another such attack, much less fend it off."  
"Wee have to pick up the people on the moon first then go there and do what we can," Kitty said.  
"Then you'll have to follow my orders."  
"Why?" Paulie asked. "We're running the show."  
"We're moving at half speed. Only I have the command codes to release the full power of the engines. And the access codes for the Stargates to Xevan and then back to Earth. You may control this ship but it won't go anywhere fast enough to help you and though stretched thin, the Imperial Guard will be able to track us and remove you within a few days time at the most."  
Kitty stepped down from the command chair. "Captain? Your chair."  
  
Xevan:  
  
"Ok, we have a limited number of choices. One, we can walk right up to that monstrosity and announce ourselves as the ones who gave them an invitation to come here," Magma said to Frenzy, the Black Bishop and Peter Rasputin as they stood on a rooftop watching the Khan Invasion force pouring out of a dimensional conduit to the grounds below. There was precious little resistance as most of the planet's populace had been driven insane and murderous by the rogue telepath Cassandra Nova in Xavier's body. If they had been actively coordinating with Nova and Khan, two of the X- Men's greatest foes, they couldn't have given them complete victory in any better fashion.  
"Other options?" Carlos De La Rosa the Black Bishop of the Hellfire Club, an ally of the X-Men and superficially Magma's bodyguard asked. His mind was wandering, desperately searching for Danielle Moonstar or Warren Worthington, the two co-leaders of the Sanctuary team through their triumvirate psi rapport. Danielle had been kidnapped by the Asgardian Marat and Warren had simply left orbit with the scout ship that was their sole transportation off of this world. They had the re-vitalizer to abolish the Brood plague and reverse it in the converted from the transported town of San Madre but now they had no way to get back to the planet Nima where it was deposited on. Carlos checked his watch, he'd set it to countdown until their reunion rendezvous. Only a couple of days left and then the other Sanctuary squad with their hopefully stolen starship would leave Nima with only the children who were uninfected by the Brood. Not a horrible alternative, except that there would then be no way back to Earth.  
"Steal a ship, seems obvious," Frenzy said calmly. She refused to panic at the prospect of being trapped on a planet God knew how far from Earth with a bunch of strangers-------none of them even the legendary X-Men who always survived-------literally one experienced X-Man, Magma and the rest were pick ups.  
"I'm sure that with my metal manipulation and mecha empathy I could understand how to pilot one in less than an hour," Peter said confidently. Carlos looked at the young man, the re-vitalizer in a pack on his back, his long ebony hair tied in a tight ponytail---he seemed so intent, so committed. Carlos found himself lost in the fact that they were all children, to him. His serial-immortality making him older than their ancestral lines. To him this was a quandary, if he died, he would be reborn, he could rattle off several cousins he might re-incarnate into. Over the centuries he'd learned how to manipulate his family line to always insure several healthy male options for his spirit to leap to. While he had no conscious control, he knew that subconsciously he must have accustomed himself to honing in on his blood. For him, the return to Earth was as simple as suicide. He'd traveled to other worlds before and died and been reborn back in Spain.  
Of course he had his oath to protect Magma and by extension her compatriots. As much as he yearned to quickly end it, he knew that he could be reborn in one of his child relatives. That would leave decades before he was physically mature enough to pursue Danielle and rescue her in Asgard, not to mention what ever had happened to Warren. The nature of their psi rapport concerned him also, would it still be in effect if he was reborn? On the periphery of his senses, like something an inch away from his fingertips he could sense they were both alive. But that sense was becoming fainter, distance surely too great at this point through time and space. A decision had to be made.  
"Deciding whether or not to kill yourself, Carlos?" Magma asked coolly. He looked at her icy blue eyes. She was the epitome of a calculating Red Queen.  
"Would you miss me, my dear Amara?" he teased.  
"You are one of my few, true friends and allies. Yes, I would," she said, her voice suddenly full of emotion and not her usual calculated reserve. He could see in her eyes that she was worried and knowing her history, he put his hand on her shoulder.  
"I will not leave you. Any of you," he said to the others who were watching the exchange.  
"If you die you'd appear back on Earth?" Frenzy reasoned, "even if by accident?"  
"Yes, but I might be reborn in a body too young to be of any use or mobility for several years. Unfortunately I do not control that aspect of my mutant ability," Carlos said calmly, he'd long ago come to terms with the fact that even surviving death an instant afterwards could put a dozen years between communicating with friends and loved ones.  
"There are at least one hundred thousand troops down there, people. With this planet being half batty, whoever is in charge won't be able to mount a defense for any length of time. Vice Admiral Kriss will be ruling this planet in less than a week if these numbers keep pouring out of that space elevator," Frenzy said looking down at the storm troopers, military equipment and flyers streaming off of the elevator every few minutes. Battalions all at once, she guessed.  
"If Kriss has acted so quickly to invade and get this planet as an invasion post then I don't think he'll be willing to compromise on either his tactics or simply give us a ship. I would say also that inadvertently we might have started a larger problem," Magma sighed. "I am arguably the most powerful and with this city half abandoned, I can freely use my powers to distract them."  
"While we take the space elevator back up into orbit to their ship?" Frenzy nodded. "It could work, but then how do we retrieve you, Magma?"  
"Improvise," Magma sighed, "that's what I'll be doing." With that she turned around and walked downstairs to take up a position.  
  
Shi'ar Deep Space:  
  
"X-Man Journal. Robert Drake known as Iceman. These are the records of the inaugural deep space mission of the Sanctuary X-Men team as we rush towards a moon to retrieve some kids and then off to a world, currently being attacked by an alien race that the X-Men beat off once before. Wait, scratch beat off, that didn't sound right," Bobby chuckled as he put his feet up on the table in the observation deck, watching the stars rocket by.  
"You are such a closet case," Northstar sighed as he walked onto the deck. "You would think that with all of your previous experience in deep space that you would be more help on the Bridge and not get kicked off by Kitty."  
"Ms. Super Cat loves going over technical theories and whozats and whatsaboos with the beautiful prisoner Captain Ari. And now we rush off to where our other compatriots have seemingly started an intergalactic war. I'm just recording this all for posterity."  
"You're sitting on your most noteworthy posterity, Drake," Northstar chuckled as he looked out at the space scape. "It is marvelous though. We've traveled so far in the past few weeks---Japan, Madripoor, a moment in Australia and now the other side of the galaxy. Sometimes I suddenly remember the days before I joined Alpha Flight and I'd barely been out of Canada before my skiing career. And now here I am again, fighting a battle, trying to rescues innocents. You've been at this much longer than I, Drake, does it ever end? Is being a mutant a curse?"  
"Jean-Paul, it's a hard life we've chosen. But right now I'm thinking about those hundreds of kids on Nima, in suspended animation. A few days don't matter but if we don't do our part, it'll be permanent hell for them once their Brood infected parents wake up. Keep your eye on the ball, Jean-Paul, that's what I've been doing for almost a decade now. You'll have plenty of time to break down later on."  
Northstar nodded. "And what of other things, Bobby? What of say----- ---pleasure?"  
Bobby blushed. "This would be the obligatory come on from the gay guy to me, right?"  
"When I imparted my healing light into you, I saw things. Things you don't discuss."  
Bobby shrugged. "I think about things sure. In fact, I think, honestly—no bullshit----that the more I explore my powers, the less I'm going to find myself to be much of anything."  
"Meaning?"  
"Meaning, if I'm in total control of my body structure, control moisture, why am I solid? Why am I male? Why not female? I understand biology enough that I could become female when I re-integrate myself."  
"Do you want to be female?" Northstar was shocked.  
"I don't know. I don't know anything any more, Jean-Paul, least of all if my mutant powers make me---above?---malleable?---able to choose?---- my gender, my sexuality. Part of what I perceive as sexuality is through my gender but if I'm fluidic in possibility of gender, maybe even not having a gender as humans define it, then why am I heterosexual?"  
Northstar sat down across from Bobby, moving slowly with his body and his thoughts. "No offense, Bobby but I didn't think that you------well, thought about things this deeply. These are issues that you do need to answer. I hadn't considered that the advancement of your powers would make you question things I noticed within you."  
"I think what you noticed is that malleability."  
"Oh. I see."  
"Hey, that wasn't a rejection. I was just wondering if you fucked at super speed?"  
For a moment Northstar blanched then he couldn't help himself and began laughing hysterically. "That does bring up the question of popsicles and genitalia!"  
"Touché."  
  
Wake up, sister.  
What? Tran? What is it?  
Look.  
Shan focused her eyes and saw her reflection in the mirror. She was looking at her face but her body was under her brother's control.  
I can do this while you sleep. It is the closest I come to mortality.  
Tran, this situation is horrible for us both.  
I don't believe it is so bad for you, Shan. You have a body.  
Your crimes were horrible, Tran, this is literally an expression of karma. We will find a way to alleviate this situation.  
Tran, controlling her muscles, smiled and then receded back into his sister's mind. His thoughts closed off to her but she could feel his seething rage. The touch of Gladiator, of possessing a body have shattered Tran's self control.  
She looked back at the messy quarters she'd taken over as her own on the battleship. It had been so long since she'd had a home. All of this running around. She pulled back on her tunic and boots, leaving her weapons on the bed and considering what would come next for her and her brother. They were at a stalemate. But she knew her brother as a man who refused to lose. Unfortunately there was no way to resolve this peaceably. It was going to come down to her existence or another being. Tran was forcing her into a corner of deadly compromise.  
  
Xevan:  
  
"There have to be at least twenty thousand shock troopers around the base of that structure. I'm sure that Magma will draw their attention away but it's still going to be difficult to get in and to the top of the conduit. Part of its original mass is in another dimension," Carlos said as he, Frenzy and Peter hid in the forest a mile away from the base of the tower. "We won't be able to hide here long, they're focusing the brunt of their forces towards the city proper but that won't be for long. According to my scanner, the Xevan forces are mounting to rebuke them on the next continent and they've sent out a general mayday to all planets within the galaxy.'"  
"So basically, this place is going to become Iraq on acid in how long?" Frenzy asked.  
"Less than twenty four hours. Peter, we could really use your help here with the space elevator. But we need to know how the hell your abilities work."  
"Oh, I just think and focus and stuff happens. How do yours work?" Peter smiled.  
"I'll break his neck if you want," Frenzy deadpanned.  
"Peter, I mean you link up to metal and mechanical instruments?"  
"Yes, that's right. My father was able to transform himself into metal. I can't do that. We waited for years for that ability to manifest but it never did. I can warp metal but that takes awhile. It takes awhile for me to align my senses to mechanisms. The more complex, the longer it takes. I can sense pulsating energy from the space elevator and I can see how it works but other than that, it's a hybrid of mechanical and advanced fiber optics. It would take me days to affect it in any substantial way," Peter admitted.  
"Ok. What about your magical powers?" Frenzy asked Carlos.  
"Well, I could start some things mentally----a storm, maybe even some illusions, move some objects----but it's best to think of my powers that I'm willing to use as complimentary. My combat skills generally compensate but it's been a long time since I've been involved with a battle of this magnitude."  
"So basically you're like a Jedi knight?" Frenzy snickered.  
"Actually, Johanna, I was the one who gave George the final insights into the template for a Jedi. No sword though. That was all him," Carlos chuckled.  
"George Lucas used to be an X-Man? Well, I can do one more thing but it will only help you when you get inside," Peter admitted.  
"What's that?' Carlos asked.  
Peter handed the large backpack with the re-vitalizer to Frenzy then stood up, his arms reaching out for the space elevator. For a minute nothing happened to the elevator then both Carlos and Frenzy looked back at Peter who was slowly beginning to fade. There was a multiple flickering of Peter's body and then he vanished.  
"He can vanish?" Frenzy sighed after a moment of silence.  
"Actually, more than vanish," Carlos said looking at his scanner then he handed it to Frenzy. "Look at this, a message from Peter. He's in the space elevator. Actually he's more of merged with it. We now have a man on the inside."  
  
Magma hadn't been able to use her powers to their fullest in years. There had been once in the future on a desolate Earth. But the fact that now she could let loose at an attacking armada gave her a feeling of freedom that she usually didn't enjoy. She tried her comm link to Vice Admiral Kriss again, but they either weren't answering or all bets were off. She had hoped that this could be resolved with perhaps even an allegiance made between her and Khan's empire. Her ascension to the Red Queen in the Hellfire Club had made her aware of the fact that she was severely lacking in a power base like her fellow Lords Cardinal. That would work against her sooner rather than later. She had only a short time to accumulate and display her power or she'd be usurped soon after she returned to Earth.  
But that was a concern for another time.  
From the cliff side the first thing she did was to start a localized earth quake around the elevator and then slowly move it closer to the entrance points, while increasing the intensity. She let fly dozens of lava bolts at their fliers that were dispersing deeper into the continent. She slowly started a ring of volcanoes around the city limits, to slow down their ground military forces---------forcing hot lava to ooze from them and create a trench of boiling molten slag a hundred miles outside of the city limits. She kept her eyes closed, keeping her mind linked to the ground below her--------seeing her handiwork through her connection to the ground itself. They needed the elevator to escape the planet so she left it intact but everything surrounding it was now a royal mess.  
Legs wobbly from the exertion, Magma cooled off her powers, reverting to human form and whirled in shock when a hand grabbed her shoulder.  
He stood, with deep emerald skin, deep golden eyes------his skin visibly reptilian with scales. He was slimmer than she expected, wearing a severe crimson uniform.  
"You lack patience," Kriss said calmly. It takes awhile for messages to be routed through all of our channels and then it took time to convince my chamber members that I should meet with you. Women associated with the X-Men have a way of........altering the intents of the Khan and his Empire."  
Amara drew her cloak around her, standing up to her full height, eyes flashing with flame. "This world was not part of our agreement. Not to annex it. Not to take over the Shi'ar Empire but to help them with an influx of supplies and military help to prevent an intergalactic war. Your poor man's invasion stops here. You're not welcome."  
"Oh, but my dear, Red Queen I am. I was issued a formal invite by the Regent of the Shi'ar. At least the last sane one," Kriss smiled slowly.  
Walking from out of the forest came two figures that Amara had only seen in video records but suddenly she realized that the X-Men had been manipulated into lowering Xevan's defenses for more than just their own needs.  
"Hello, Magma," Deathbird cooed, opening her wing span grandly, a slightly stooped man standing rapped in her feather, "and this is my brother, D'Ken."  
"Oh, shit," Magma murmured. "It's like intergalactic Dallas. Does anyone stay dead? I personally have a theory about these constant re- emergences being a super power unto them selves."  
"Don't despair, Amara dear, we have a proposition for you," Deathbird smiled. "An ambitious woman like yourself will appreciate becoming Empress........of Earth." 


	10. Oooooops, I Did It Again

X-Men: Sanctuary Issue # 10 By Kyle Phoenix War Part 3 "Oooooops, I Did It Again."  
  
Roster: Archangel Northstar Magma Shadowcat Peter Rasputin, Jr. Black Bishop Psyche Paulie Spike Frenzy Karma Chamber Nightcrawler Iceman Talisman Raphael Hunter Capt. Ari  
  
Shi'ar Deep Space:  
  
"We're sorry about this you know," Kitty said to Captain Ari who had been sitting stoically in her command chair for almost twelve hours straight. The X-Men had taken shifts being awake with two people always on the Bridge with the impassive starship commander, who had refused to leave her post. At first it seemed like obstinacy and then Kitty had come to accept that she was tacitly agreeing to the hijacking so long as her ship wasn't damaged. And she considered herself the only one capable of directing it properly. Truth be told, kitty was relieved and happy that the woman had chosen to help, even if it wasn't willingly. A starship was not an easy thing to fly, especially with only her being the X-Man with the most knowledge of not only Shi'ar language but technology. She'd been pulling long shifts with brief cat naps for days, being in a dozen places at once to both monitor, teach the others and formulate their plan. Storm had taught her well how to manage a team, she was proud to say.  
"Shadowcat, isn't it? I reviewed your record. It's one of the few databases I'm still allowed to access on my own ship," Ari said frostily.  
"I apologize for that as well. But we can't have you sending out a distress signal or blowing us to Hell. If you did have those thoughts, I'd have to make sure I phased you into space before any harm came to the ship. So you see, our goals and concerns are the same. Maintain the integrity of the ship," Kitty said back just as coldly. She couldn't give this woman an inch in believing that her value outstripped Kitty's willingness to compensate for her loss.  
Ari arched her brow carefully. "Your file, it is impressive though. Your mastery of the Shi'ar computer systems and which ones to subjugate. Your leader, Professor Xavier has taught you well. You would make an accomplished commander of a ship in a few years. However you'll understand if I'm not interested in your apologies. We're streaking towards a world, a world full of Empire research to alleviate the madness your leader infected us with. On top of that is a new barbaric race from another dimension that are here at your people's behest to possibly take over my people. All for the refugees we'll be picking up in a few hours. You expect me to see anything but madness in risking hundreds of billions of lives for what----hundreds?"  
"This is all spiraling out of control. This was never our intent," Kitty said hesitantly.  
"Have you ever considered how destructive you X-Men are throughout the whole damn universe!?" she seethed then got herself back under control. Her hands flying to smooth her feathers on her head. The hatred dulled in her eyes for a moment, her breathing became less labored. "Shadowcat, by Terran standards you're a young woman. Barely an adult and yet you've had adventures and done things that make my career pale in comparison. You even were friends with the Evil Harbinger, Dark Phoenix before her transformation and consuming of worlds and a sun. Unfortunately we Shi'ar through Lilandra's love of you and your leader have been raped by all associations."  
"We've helped in the past. We'll do everything in our power to help you now."  
"Your help is a deadly thing, Katherine Pryde."  
"I know. I know that there are many victims from what the X-Men become immersed in. I've even left the X-Men for a time because of that reason, because I was tired of seeing so much death and destruction. I can't help but agree that the X-Men are like a plague in some ways. But there are true innocents, children, who we're trying to save here."  
"You've also crippled my people's last hope. There were top secret medical experiments taking place on Xevan. To restore a leader to the Shi'ar," Ari admitted wearily. "The talks with the Kree and Skrull we're stop gaps to give the process time. Don't get me wrong, Katherine Pryde, I'm not racing my ship to that medical planet to simply stop the invasion. On that world in stasis for several years was our last mad leader, D'Ken. He was healed. I pray he hasn't been slain."  
"D'Ken?" Kitty gasped. She'd known of Lilandra's mad brother who'd almost destroyed the universe from the X-Men database.  
"Yes, it seems you X-Men have put yourselves in the thick of the shit yet again," Ari said dryly then turned her eyes back to the viewer screen.  
Kitty felt torn about leaving the woman. But with the information of D'Ken being on Xevan, she saw why there hadn't been much resistance. Ari had a mission to protect the next leader of the Empire from the invasion that was occuring. Kitty looked back at Karma and Northstar who were at their assigned stations then let herself phase through the floor below. For a moment she felt a slight tugging at her consciousness and realized it was because they were traveling at such high speeds. She wondered if perhaps if she didn't focus so hard on maintaining a form of cohesiveness she would shred apart if she let those forces touch her. That was big quantum physics theory concepts she was too weary to speculate on now. She wondered if she would ever get a chance just to do pure research again, to consider herself and the Universe at large.  
She came through the wall into the cavernous science lab that had become her home for the past few days. It allowed her to monitor and if necessary, due to several programs she'd integrated into the systems, control all the ship's functions and it was only two decks away from the Bridge. She phased down onto her cot, where there were half a dozen blankets and pillows. She set her watch for ninety minutes and then closed her eyes, she couldn't bear to keep thinking on the problems she had to solve over the next few days.  
  
Nima:  
  
Talisman came up to the surface of the water and stepped nude onto the beach. With a wave of her hand a strong breeze took the water away from her and then another wave of her hand and her costume appeared on her body. She shook her hair out and then turned, her mystical sensors throughout the beach and atmosphere alerting their mistress to something. She pressed deeply at the wards and for a moment the feeling slipped away.  
  
She gritted her teeth and looked around her for Chamber and Hunter---- they were both at the far end of the beach, in their makeshift hut, giving her privacy. Not noticing her shame. Talisman logically knew that she could do so much, that everything she could think of was at her will to bend, to manipulate, but it was like trying to hold a soap bubble. If she moved at things too hard, the connection popped. She had access to the power but she hadn't studied specific spells for years the way her father and others had. Magic was still....magical to her. She often found her self stumbling through her own thoughts for what to do and then how to do it. It was like being rich and not ever having a credit card or cash on hand. Making the mystical credit cards/cash---the keys to accessing her wealth of power was what slowed her down, exhausted her.  
She looked up again and touched her sensors. They were hers.  
Yes, there it was the shift in space-----an object coming towards the moon in both form, energy and intent of the beings aboard. Beings who Talisman recognized and a very angry and frightened woman.  
Chamber stood up and looked at Talisman and then the night sky. His telepathy was stronger around her, he was learning to take cues from her when she radiated psychic energy. Talisman let her mind go to San Madre, tightly wound up in mystical bonds that she'd worked on for days, so that Holy Mother, Raphael and the thousands of residents would stay unconscious.  
"How long?" Chamber asked Talisman as she came over to the hut. "I can feel 'em but I can't put me tongue, if I had one, on how long."  
"We push too hard. Both of us. Too many of us on this team have access to great power but lack the training to use it." Talisman looked back up and thought about distance, about it not existing and then trying to overlap that image between her and the ship that was coming closer over onto her logical measuring self. "Three hours, I think."  
Hunter looked at them both, his brow covered in sweat. "I don't have long. A day or two at most. When we get aboard the ship you'd best put me in stasis. The Brood egg in me will mature soon."  
"I think we're going to need you to hold on a bit longer than that, Hunter. We'll need someone to help fly that ship," Talisman said and kneeled in front of the Shi'ar man. "You've given up so much to help us, to help these people of San Madre."  
"I was first sworn to my liege, Lilandra and then to stopping these Brood from getting a foothold on your world, any world. I fought in the first Brood War when the Empire encountered them in deep space. I've lost many friends and loved ones. I cannot see that happen. Nor could I turn my back on one's that my liege found so compelling as to love," he coughed slightly and Talisman's hands began to glow. She held his hand and closed her eyes, looking deeply into his system. She could see the Brood egg intertwining through his limbic system, the texture of his blood chemistry was changing. Soon the change would be deadly to his Shi'ar biology. Essentially the Brood killed off all of the immune system and then consumed the remaining biology to convert into food to feed itself as it ate one from the inside out. It looked like a transformation but in fact it was a genetic coup dentate.  
She wished she'd paid more attention to her father's healing spells. She thought that she could separate the two entities if she only had the proper training. She couldn't even figure out how to heal. She patted his feathered hand gently then stood up and walked slowly back towards San Madre. The mystically comatose victims of the town were the only one's she felt comfortable with anymore, at least in their silence she could pretend it was hope.  
  
"A township?" Ari said in surprise, looking over the holographic schematic of the moon below. "You Stargated an entire town?" She couldn't help but chuckle. "You are a marvel, Shadowcat. You bend the rules of what I thought a Stargate was capable of and I minored in Stargate Technology at university."  
"Thank you. I've run some calculations and had the others emptying out the deployment bays. Moving all those supplies and ships to other cargo bays and unused crew quarters."  
"Yes, that didn't escape me. You can't bring the entire town back so you intend to bring only the town center? This area here and the cavern below it?"  
"Yes, I think I've recalibrated the matter transporters properly and Cecelia has been working on maintaining the anaesthetizing gas."  
"Why are the refugees being kept in stasis?" Captain Ari asked suddenly.  
Kitty looked at Cecelia who shrugged. "Hey, she's got to know at some point."  
"Know what?" Ari asked, perplexed. "I am for all intents your prisoner. Why bother concern for my feelings?"  
"All of the people we're beaming up, with the exception of two teammates, have been infected by the Brood," Kitty said calmly looking Ari dead in the eye.  
Ari was still for a long moment then took a deep breath and nodded. "So we will be carrying a lethal biological alien on board as we then fly my ship into the midst of an invasion? Would you like to activate the self destruct now? It will save time and pain when we perish."  
The three women were silent for a long minute.  
"That was like Star Trek humor, right?" Cecelia asked.  
"It was admittance that while I readily admit that you X-Men cut the odds to beyond my ability to calculate the probabilities of success with, you are also reckless. Part of your recklessness is what spirals these situations out into destroying the lives of others, throughout the galaxy. Simply put, your best ideas and intentions lead to ruin. You require new input."  
"You know, I've been suggesting much the same thing for awhile now," Cecelia laughed. "Kitty, I think Capt. Ari has shown that she's willing to at least begrudgingly help us so that she can get to this Xevan planet to save their King Decon."  
"Emperor D'Ken," Ari corrected.  
"Whomever. Point is, we need her to run some of our operations so that we can save those people below and prevent that invasion."  
Kitty chewed her lip thoughtfully. The Shi'ar captain, though not pleased with being hijacked had priorities that were beginning to put them in alignment with the X-Men's goals. This operation was also fast spiraling out of Kitty's ability to manage. She slowly shook her head. "Ok, Captain, advice on how to accomplish this?"  
"First tell me exactly what happened and brought you here, I'm still unclear as to that," Ari said.  
It took Kitty and Cecelia nearly ten minutes but between the two of them they were able to bring her up to date with their dilemma.  
Ari's eyes flashed with deep emotion for a moment then turned back to the holographic schematics. "First, we will only bring the children aboard. You're making a decision based upon the possibility of converting them all back to human. The adults you must consider expendable. They are literally the absolute corrupted diseased part of your mission. The children though, in stasis, are still salvageable medically. We'll transport the children up to the cargo bay and put them into deep stasis. As the isle is Stargate transportable we will transport it that way to prevent contamination. The mystical bindings of your teammate Talisman and the technology built into the isle will have to preserve them. We will leave them near the Stargate that I will use to take you back to Earth once, we have saved Xevan. Is that clear?"  
Kitty was about to open her mouth when she understood that this is what Capt. Ari was best at so she agreed and opened the comm link to the X- Men and Hunter below to explain the plan.  
  
Madripoor:  
  
Sabine woke up first at a loss for what had happened to have brought upon the darkest of consciousness. Sabine did a quick mental survey and found that his body was male, which generally meant combat of some sort. He looked around, the nearly collapsed cottage. A battle had taken place. He reached out mentally for Meridian and found..........something odd. Meridian was alive, whatever force had overwhelmed him, her protector, hadn't killed her but in some form she'd been co-opted. She was nearby. Only a couple of miles away.  
Sabine stood up and literally felt a pressure of psionic energy suffusing the entire island.  
Something was deeply wrong.  
The child.  
Sabine got to his feet and began moving towards his mistresses' psychic radiance.  
A fist slammed into his head from behind.  
"Not so fast," M said as she pinned his arm behind him.  
Emma Frost strolled into the room, in full diamond form. "Why, hello, Sabine. This is my student M. She's quite upset at the fact that your employer has seemingly been the cause of this entire isle falling under some sort of psionic spell."  
Sabine looked up in shock.  
"Yes, Sabine, I know of Meridian. She's old, yes, but not as invisible as she wants to be. One of the Marauders, Arclight, a clone, I understand was left alive and Viper had the foresight to hide this from all but her most trusted associates. I plucked it from the thoughts of one of said associates and when this odd psionic malady befell, what is rapidly becoming this isle nexus for all mutant mayhem on Earth, I decided that M and I should immediately visit the near death Arclight and do a deep, thorough mental scan of her. I don't believe in coincidences of presence between the X-Men, the Marauders and then this psionic control field. So Arclight's memories brought us here and we arrived just in time to see this pleasant cottage pummeled by a Shi'ar scout ship and then rocket off to Hightown.  
"Now, we'll have to go to Hightown to end this madness, of course. Mainly because Frost Industries has nearly one hundred million invested in this mayhem rock and I refuse to post those kinds of third quarter losses. As we're all caught up with one another, would you mind explaining just what, excuse my French, the fuck is going on?"  
Sabine considered his options carefully. Meridian had been co-opted in this endeavor but that didn't mean all was lost. These X-Men considered Meridian a super villain at most; there were ways to still protect his mistress in this matter.  
"Meridian was pregnant with a mutant child. The child of Warren Worthington, one of your number."  
"How 'Dynasty'," M said dryly then tightened her hold on his arm. "And this psionic blanket?"  
"I believe that the child is the cause of this. That the child is being born with an incarnation greater than a child's and has plans of his own."  
"And what are those plans?" Emma asked.  
"To be the Anti-Christ," Sabine sighed.  
"Oh, wonderful, a child with delusions of epic grandeur," M sighed. "Doesn't anyone evil ever want to say destroy drug manufacturers to plunge the economy into turmoil? Something simple?"  
"The very nature of complete world domination stems from narcissism and a psychosis that suggests they would be able to manage an entire planet. I had simply a ghastly time managing my staff at my Gstaad villa! But, on to world saving, again," Emma sighed.  
"Why would Warren fire upon you and this cottage and where are the rest of the X-Men?" M asked.  
"I have no idea. But it was only Archangel aboard the ship. That much I remember from the attack."  
"Do you think you'll be fired as Meridian's personal guard?" Emma queried.  
"At the least."  
  
Warren felt like his mind was truly his own, that he had complete control over himself. He knew that Meridian had changed him, had unlocked something about him that he had never even remotely considered before. He had left his teammates and thousands of innocents stranded on the other side of the galaxy to come back for the woman in his arms. Meridian looked up at him and smiled.  
"My champion. Looks like we have a problem with our child though," she sighed looking over at the crimson coruscating energy field in the center of Frost Industries hangar bay. "I told you he would be a handful."  
"Yes, you did. Is this how it all begins? The war you told me about?"  
"It is more than a war. It is the destruction of the spiritual consciousness," Meridian corrected.  
"Of course. I'm still not clear on how our child is going to attempt this."  
"He'll travel back in time and kill a world leader who's changed the world's consciousness."  
"Uhhhhhhhhh.....that's already happened. A fellow X-Man Bishop was part of restoring this world with the help of the alternate universe X-Men. Prof. X's son went back in time to kill Magneto and killed Prof. X instead. It's really hard to imagine my first child as lacking the ability to even set a world destruction trend."  
"Oh, Warren, don't despair! I know that people like us who have accomplished so much in life worry about the motivation of their children. Will they be able to live up to the high standard we've unknowingly set? He will."  
"How?" Warren said skeptically as the energy field began to swirl faster.  
"Oh, he's going to kill someone much more profound," Meridian assured.  
"Warren Buffet?"  
"Jesus Christ."  
  
Somewhere:  
  
Dani lifted her head and groaned. This was not good.  
Marat stood in front of her, holding his battle axe. She was chained to a rock, actually more of a boulder on a cliff side.  
"You broke our agreement," he said calmly.  
"I was needed. By my family. On Earth. And then the X-Men thing came along. You knew I would come back eventually," Dani sighed, she knew he was right, she owed him more than she had done.  
"I am not a patient man."  
"Yes, that is abundantly clear to both me and my friends. I hope they're still alive?" she asked hopefully.  
"All but the blue one, his disappearing powers interacted with one of my axes."  
"Oh, shit! Marat, we have to find him. Help him. He would've appeared--------anywhere-----Valhalla? Asgaard?"  
"And your debt to me? Our marriage?"  
"Our marriage was to stop a war and because of our feelings but as corny as this sounds, we both know why it would never work," Dani sighed, she looked around the peak she was on. Just where in the hell had he brought her?  
Marat leaned down, set his axe down and roughly grabbed her chin. "You have obligations, woman! You cannot expect this Earth band of genetic mishaps rule your destiny. And you have a grand destiny! Unfortunately I am entwined with said destiny, I am and so are my people, my tribe. I cannot afford for you to grow beyond the maturity of less than two centuries of life to understand what it means to be responsible to a people."  
"I'm sorry, Marat. By the by, just where in the hell are we?" Dani asked politely. She knew that he was right in so many ways about so many things. She'd pledged to him and been with him a hundred years that no one knew about and instead of honoring that she'd slipped away one night without a word.  
""Your friends will be here. Perhaps in a year. Perhaps a decade. Time is hard to understand in mortal constraints," Marat shrugged and smirked sadistically. I will kill them if you do not find them first." He pointed towards the setting sun. "Eight thousand miles, that way, they will appear. It will take awhile to break this chain, you'll have to use the magicks I taught you. By using them, you will reestablish your bond to me."  
"You always were a smart fuck," Dani smirked. "We could save a lot of time and energy, if we just walked together."  
"Yes, we could. But the imprisonment in both time and body will give you time to think," Marat kissed her gently then picked up his axe and walked away.  
Dani picked up the length of the chain that was bolted into the rock itself. She could feel the magic pulsating through it.  
Great.  
Her X uniform was in a pile a few feet out of reach, that meant she would be cold when night fall came sitting in only deerskin loin cloth that he'd changed her into. Around her neck though was the crystal choker that he'd given her when they'd been married. She began the chant, that her people had started a thousand years before her birth. And she felt a slight spark in the chain. Not a lot. Like one letter in a book being highlighted.  
This was going to take awhile.  
  
Shi'ar space:  
  
"You are the motherfucking woman!" Talisman laughed as she, Chamber and Hunter walked onto the battleship bridge. She gave Shadowcat a high five. "A battleship?! You stole a battleship!! I half expected you to come back with the Millennium Falcon!"  
"Hey, I couldn't have done it without the others. This is Captain Ari, this is her ship," Kitty said with a broad grin and waved at the Shi'ar captain. She quickly brought them up to date on the plan as Ari walked over to Hunter.  
"You are helping them, Commander?" Ari said in disgust.  
"I was assigned by the Empress Lilandra to watch a Brood sect. I was to be relieved. Then the madness spread and all in contact with Earth were abandoned," Hunter said shamefully, bowing his head.  
Ari put her hand on his shoulder. "And now you are infected?"  
"Yes, Captain. I am. But these X-Men are worthy beings. I hope that they can help restore what their teacher's possession has wrought."  
"Yes, they are unique beings. It will be good to have you aboard, they are good fill ins but I need someone familiar with starship operation, you are now my second in command. Hopefully we'll be able to eradicate the Brood from you. If not, I will do you the honor of killing you myself if need be. Take a position at Navigation, it's the one position no one amongst them has adequate experience in. It would be my honor have one of the Majestrix's Royal Guard there."  
"Thank you, Captain," Hunter said and sat down at the navigation console.  
Kitty pointed at the glowing blip on the holographic schematic. "We are confirmed that the Stargate machinery is activated on San Madre and ready for transport."  
"Initiate," Ari nodded at Cecelia who punched in a series of commands on her console. A moment later two directional beams shot from the battleship, in opposite directions one to the ship below and the other to the Stargate they would be using.  
Ari checked the calculations on her arm rest again. "This is very good. Essentially the town will travel at a markedly slower speed which will give us two days before it appears at the terminus point, the Stargate in Sector 18. If we're not there to retrieve them, they die. If we don't make it there to retrieve them, we're either dead or they might as well be."  
"That's thousands of people just beamed into the nether region," Chamber said, shaking his head.  
"And children we can possibly rescue downstairs."  
"And me?" a figure said as he stepped from behind Chamber.  
"Raphael?" Kitty said in surprise.  
"He was with the children and not infected like the adults or Holy Mother," Talisman explained, "so I brought him aboard."  
"I don't seek to harm anyone.......I don't know what to do anymore," Raphael stammered in his thick South American accent and looked both helplessly and hopelessly around the Bridge, his eyes bulging at the star scape before him. He suddenly seemed thin and drawn and overwhelmed and clutched his tattered white robes even tighter.  
"We're not going to hurt you, Raphael. You remember me? From the cavern? We're just trying to help everyone of San Madre. We had to come to some.......friends in space to get the medicine for them though," Kitty said, stepping unflinchingly forward.  
Raphael pried his eyes away from the nearly two story tall viewer screen of the stars whizzing by outside as they sped towards Xevan. "I understand. Your witch, Elizabeth explained this all to me."  
"I also explained that Holy Mother, the prime source of his power was a million miles away and that I'd personally show him what real magic was about if he got out of hand," Talisman assured everyone.  
"Good," Nemesis nodded.  
Raphael looked nervously at Nemesis, his eyes seeming to study her featureless mask then his own face relaxed and he nodded. Instead of the implied threat he seemed to find comfort in her. "I will work to help my people. My allegiance to the Holy Mother was wrong, it was her influence. I no longer agree with her actions. I apologize for my part in her plans."  
"We seem to have a knack for picking up orphans on this team," Paulie grunted.  
"That we do. I'll get everyone settled then we can get together in the meeting room to go over our strategy for dealing with the invasion," Shan smiled and lead their compatriots onto the transport elevator.  
Captain Ari gave them a long glare then went back to her command chair. She was torn between fear, revulsion and the Empire's pressing necessity for warriors. Lilandra had her choice of consorts from all over the galaxy and yet she'd chosen a human, a mutant human, Ari was beginning to see why. The possessed both variety and vitality and though they were immature in matters of intergalactic politics, she could see that they were a force to be reckoned with. They were vibrant, optimistic people teeming with life.  
  
Xevan:  
  
"We are so fucking dead," Frenzy muttered under her shock troopers' helmet to Carlos, who was following her in similar body armor and full face covering helmet.  
"We're doing fine, Johanna, don't worry," Carlos said in a low voice into his comm link though no one could hear them as they walked amongst a legion of troopers that he could only compare to vague campaigns he remembered in Earth's history. Troy. The Crusades. WWI. Though he had lived through them all, he had only brief memories unless he actually focused on them. His mind was like a mansion of rooms that sealed off when he "died" and was reborn. Deep within the recesses of that house, the basement, and yet permeating through all of the walls was the Beast who he'd been co-opted by long ago. They were both prison and prisoner to the other.  
The gauntlet on his left arm quickly flashed a series of lights and Carlos heard the staticky voice, almost hollow, like true ghosts within the machine, of Peter speak through their comm links.  
Ahead about a thousand feet is the supply transport that goes up through this space elevator. I've authorized your presence aboard it to return with technological materials to be examined by their scientists.  
"Good work, Peter," Carlos sighed, his faith in the young man had been neutral until now but Carlos was beginning to see the immense potential the boy possessed. "Outside?" bombardments of planetary weaponry from the Xevan and presumably Magma had been going on for hours.  
Magma did a lot of damage to their forces and the Xevan had been able to make their way through the insane infected people and attack the invasion forces directly. There is another problem though.  
"I knew it," Frenzy grunted. "Never an easy caper."  
The space elevator is basically like a rope, a big metal rope attached to their other dimension and ships, planetary size ships in continuing dimensions. The "top" of the elevator is within an inter- dimensional rift. It's endless in a physical matter way.  
"I see. So we cannot exit from the roof as it were. What about locating an escape ship?"  
Within the upper stratosphere there are hundreds of patrol ships to protect the dimensional aperture. It takes me awhile to..........move through this much metal. It's like swimming upstream and the energy that powers and irradiates this whole complex is slowing me down even further.  
"You move with metallic based molecules, I suspect," Carlos said calmly. "You're not truly a part of the integrated computer system."  
No. I am not. Sorry. I understand everything from the inside out. Then jump back out and program the computers but I can't control them while inside. It's risky for me to keep appearing and I'm going to have to keep going higher in the elevator to secure your passage. They have thousands of security protocols.  
"He's no Sage," Frenzy muttered.  
Yes, but I am still the ace up your hole, Frenzy! Peter defended.  
Carlos chuckled. The boy's mastering of idioms was comical at best. "You're doing fine, Peter. We couldn't have gotten this far without you acting as the point man. We understand your limitations and I want you to take every precaution to protect yourself and keep yourself undetected. There is no way we could fight our way to the upper levels of this monstrosity. The X-Men's style of smash and win, won't win today. With the revitalizer in tow, we have to be extremely careful."  
Frenzy and the Black Bishop walked onto the large cargo transport shuttle, Frenzy still carrying the revitalizer on her back, dozens of scientists and shock troopers sitting alongside them. Carlos craned his neck to see where the scanners were that authorized people to just get on board but decided to not look suspicious and kept his head down. Luckily the Khan Force was made up of so many divergent races from throughout other dimensions that they blended in physically by simply being bipeds.  
There was a tremor under the elevator itself and Carlos couldn't help but wonder if and when Magma would have no choice but to stop acting as a distracting force and instead attack the elevator directly, her power being equal to probably bringing it down. He reached out empathically for her, as always he felt the coolness of logical intent that was a sharp contrast to her fiery exterior. She was feeling oddly overwhelmed though. Almost like she'd finally admitted to herself that she was confronting more than even her ego thought she could handle.  
  
"I can easily destroy you all!" Magma said haughtily to the assemblage before her. "In fact, it would end problems near and far, if I did so."  
Deathbird tensed, the fiery woman before her wasn't joking. She moved closer to her brother D'Ken, to whisk him away and leave Kriss to discover how hot he really liked it if Magma did anything. Deathbird was still getting reports from her agents throughout the region that there were localized volcanoes and earthquakes appearing all over the city. Supposedly Magma could stop these.  
Kriss nodded almost imperceptibly. Though nearly human in appearance except for his skin color, he had a decidedly reptilian genetic nature. Deathbird could sense barely any body heat from him.  
"You could do that, Red Queen Amara. You could surely topple my advance force tower. Which is why I insisted with my other potential allies this negotiation. You want off of this world. They want a large, sane military force to help them restore stability to their shattered empire. And as they are my Lord Khan's allies from many a dimension, I am willing to help them," Kriss said calmly then looked down at his forces who were now fighting the Xevan armies. He was quiet for several longer minutes then he turned back to the assemblage.  
"Safe passage off of this world for me and companions?" Magma asked warily.  
"We can't allow that, my dear," Deathbird said. "One emissary can live."  
"I concur with my sister," D'Ken said slowly, almost as if the words brought him pain. He hadn't taken his eyes off of Magma the entire meeting.  
Magma considered her options. Which weren't many. Ally herself with a madman, a madwoman, a being she was beginning to think was a physical incarnation of a snake. All three with shattered, tattered empires that they were trying to reform. Should one of these monsters become a ruler of such an empire, what did that say for Earth's future. It was one thing to be willing to sacrifice a few compatriots for her goals but her world? There were many things she was willing to be, but not responsible for planetary genocide.  
Well, not the genocide of her own world.  
"Here's my offer. Safe passage off and I'll stop what I've done," Magma smiled. Then waved a fiery arm at the warring armies below. "Oh, not that. I've been slowly moving tectonic plates within the planetary crust itself. Only I can reverse it. Killing me won't help. Think of it as planet imploding from within. Check with your scientists. We have time. Not much. But enough."  
"Human whore!!!!!!!!" D'Ken raged and reached for her throat but his sister grabbed him and held him back.  
"Oh my," Magma sighed. "Seeing your precious new allies once again finding the price of taking over this dimension too costly. What does a space elevator go for these days without Lord Khan's approval and charisma? I'm willing to bet, it costs about one Vice Admiral's future, what do you think?"  
Kriss looked at her stoically for several long seconds. "If you cannot win the game, destroy the board?"  
"Between the three of you, I might as well go back and destroy Earth myself. You'll eventually invade or destroy it out of revenge or egomaniacal greed. So, why don't you take what is the first in a long line of nutty royalty and get back in your needle and shove it..........back home?" Magma growled.  
"Come, D'Ken, we don't need her. Nor Xevan. We'll simply leave. She's the one bound by the lack of a ship," Kriss opened a small communicator. "Now, Reshell."  
Almost instantaneously the skies above, dark except for the fire fights above seemed to flash like daylight. To electrify. First blinding white and then yellow and finally settling into a deep pinkish gray.  
Kriss looked up, a small smile on his lips. "That is essentially a force field around the planet that disrupts all electromagnetic generators several miles above the surface. A no fly zone if you will. Now my elevator is the only way of transporting on and off. I doubt the four hundred million Xevans will want to be here when the planet explodes and I'm more than willing to....shove my elevator back up now that I have the rightful heirs to the Empire."  
"You two must've been elated to be greeted by Kriss' people who you are royalty to," Magma said darkly to D'Ken and Deathbird.  
"I look forward to introducing them. It will insure the future you were so concerned about," Kriss smirked.  
"'Look forward'...? Good," Magma chuckled.  
"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" D'Ken screamed and a moment later his body was covered with large roasting chunks of Kriss' body. Magma had focused and within an instant made him spontaneously combust, she didn't think she could do it a second time; she'd been concentrating on it as singular, invisible pulse of her power to generate heat for the entirety of their conversation. In fact, she'd been trying to kill them all. Her head felt like it would explode and her fiery appearance was rapidly returning to human.  
"That was the Empire's last hope!!!!!!!!!!" D'Ken screamed, charging towards the mutant, but his sister was faster, her claws extended. Magma was barely able to grab Deathbird's wrists to stop the impaling and pull them both backwards and tumbling down the ridge.  
Magma had taken all the hand to hand combat courses Xavier offered, basic judo, but she was no match for a born warrior and with her powers at such a low ebb, she didn't think she could even summon enough energy to put up a defense. Deathbird's wings expanded out and they swooped over the battlefield, thousands of Invasion troopers fighting Xevan's military. Magma screamed out as Deathbird viciously bit into her throat, narrowly missing her jugular, the woman was an animal!  
"I will enjoy this, bitch!" Deathbird shrieked, sailing towards a communications vehicle, particularly its raised antenna. It was obvious to dump her enemy, impaling her. Magma could barely see through the smoke and fires from below, the laser fire, the screams and explosions, twirling in mid-air over a war zone, heading towards death, Magma screamed primally.  
She was the newly coroneted Red Queen of the Hellfire Club! She would not die at the hand of this half animal slag! Magma raged at her mutant power, she reached past the agony in her mind, clutching her heart and found the fire that she controlled, the touch of the earth below her that was hers alone to command. She called the power, her power over the very fabric of the earth below and the antenna sped closer to them, everything sped closer to them as a wave of earth rose from the ground, half solid, mostly molten. Literally a lava tsunami. Magma cared no longer for the ramifications of her powers on this world, for the lives this would take below.  
If she were to die, she'd take every one of the bastards with her.  
  
Carlos felt the empathic scream of rage, terror and deep resolve a moment before it seemed like the world had gone insane. Something large had hit the tower. Like a fist. They'd been tossed for what seemed like minutes and then Carlos had felt Frenzy's arm clutching him, her steely emotional resolve to survive predominant in her mind. He realized that something had happened to his helmets display system, everything was now static, not the usual computations and readouts fed directly from the computer system. He could also feel the Beast within him raging in glee. Which meant one thing.  
Death on a large scale.  
Thousands if not more.  
In a short time.  
"Don't move, Carlos, Let me just do this," Frenzy said and Carlos ripped off his helmet. He wished that he hadn't. He wasn't just dangling from the arm of the seven foot tall woman. The cargo transport inside had ripped open upon the external impact and they were thousands of feet above the ground below, Frenzy pulling them up through a makeshift hand and foot grappling motion. Between his weight and the revitalizer, he knew it was probably negligible to her super strength but as he watched dozens of soldiers falling from below and above them, he wondered if they'd be hit by plummeting machinery or bodies.  
"Peter!!!" Carlos screamed into his comm link. If the boy was IN the metal in some sort of mutant phasing, what the hell would happen if the structure was damaged so?  
"I'm here."  
"Good. Were you injured? How does this affect you? What happened?" Carlos yelled down into his gauntlet.  
"No. I'm here," Peter said again and this time the anti gravity sled lowered to eye level next to Frenzy and Carlos. He was wearing a soldier's uniform over his uniform and smiling brightly as he always was, like it was all one grand adventure. Carlos couldn't help but smile, the boy's enthusiasm at this madness was infectious. The two X-Men hopped onto the anti gravity sled and Peter slowly steered it to rise in the shaft to a safer level.  
"Magma hit the whole tower with a wave of earth, lava while a massive earthquake occurred around the base," Peter explained. "Because I was monitoring the base from the inside, I "saw" it coming. I was able to get out close to this sled to help us. We have another problem though. The tower is both damaged and started a criss-crossing network of an energy lattice to prevent ships from launching off world. The energy field is out of control."  
"We have to go back for Magma, if she's still alive. Damn, did I just say that?" Frenzy said tiredly.  
Carlos wiped the blood from his face and looked at the ruined inner tower. All he could see below was fire and hear screams and explosions. "Keep going up. No choice. Magma isn't dead so we're her only hope from above, not below. Our exit ship, Peter?"  
"Well, it's above the no fly force field but won't be for long. It's like an energy whip is striking the planet from this force field thing being out of control. Between the tectonic stress from below and above, this world is in bad shape", Peter explained. "I don't even know how to help or stop this."  
"We can't. Keep rising us," Carlos said adamantly. "It can't get any worse."  
  
Deep Space:  
  
Holy Mother felt her body being lifted and moved by her followers, her strength being restored. That horrible slumber that she'd been fighting against for so long was finally over. Somehow the Native witch's magicks had been disrupted. She opened her eyes and smiled then her smile turned to a look of consternation and finally grim understanding and acceptance.  
The Brood Queen pulled Holy Mother closer with a tentacle, their thoughts becoming one, without hesitation. Where as Holy Mother was the most powerful Brood Queen on Earth, she was merely a host, a distant cousin, to the true Brood Queen Mother, who now held her in the belly of an enslaved Acanti.  
"Earth child, you are mine. Yoursssssssss are mine. And as we sssssssssssnatched you from the Stargated beam we've been tracking where your attackers went. Where they've taken the true prizessssssssssss------ the children. I want the children, Child Queen. I know how you changed them. What you did. I want them."  
"Yes, my Queen", Holy Mother whispered, a small part of her magicks telling her that San Madre was still on it's way across the universe while they were heading in the opposite direction towards a world called Xevan.  
  
Xevan:  
  
Talisman felt the world before they had completed the transition from the Stargate. She literally felt a world being ripped apart. It was like hearing a relative scream out in agony. She had never expected her powers to put her into such rapport with an entire world. It made her really consider what her powers were, and what they were capable of.  
"We have a real problem," she announced as she walked onto the bridge but felt a deep moment of redundancy. The viewer screen was full of the planet Xevan with a seeming lance through it, a crackling energy field around it with volcanoes visibly erupting on the surface. "Ok, they have a real problem. I can actually feel this world screaming out in agony. I don't know if it has much more time left if we can't stop all of the hell that's broken loose on it."  
"So this is Khan's space elevator?" Paulie smirked. "Is it supposed to crack the world in half? Looks like a knife in an eyeball. Anyone else like Jason vs. Freddie, the movie?"  
Kitty and Hunter rose from a console where they'd been busily going through computations. He calmly explained the problem they were seeing on the viewer screen. "I think that trying to set up a force field around the planet is what started this whole debacle. This erratic tectonic activity also looks like your teammates Magma's power signature. But I'd guess that she was fighting them as the field was put up. The field was calibrated for the planet's magnetic field prior to Magma's powers being used on it. On a subtle level, her shifting and rolling of tectonic plates alters a planet's magnetic poles."  
Kitty continued. "Generally because she stops, the shifting stops. The field must've gone up and now it's trying to recalibrate the magnetic field erroneously. The space elevator registers a lot of damage. I'd wager the field is no longer in their control. Gravity is orbiting the planet one way, Magma is pulling it counter pole and the field is trying to twist it another way. Hence, the massive crumbling of the world."  
"But the people! How do we stop this?!" Northstar demanded.  
"There are close to four hundred million people on the planet," Ari said stoically. "At least a fourth of them were infected with the Insanity Virus. This invasion is perfectly targeted to a world already strained to its very fiber by war and strife. The fact that the Emperor D'Ken was being treated on a facility here secretly only makes this more imperative."  
"Why wasn't D'Ken snatched up from here?" Iceman asked.  
"Politics. Hubris. Other forms of bureaucratic insanity," Hunter grunted.  
Ari shrugged. "Xevan is one of our greatest healing colonies, cutting edge science. A fourth of the population infected was the lowest numbers throughout the Empire. I'm not in touch with Shi'ar Intelligence any longer but I assume that they felt him safe here. This virus has all but slain the Empire, retrieving a leader who may or may not ever be sane again wasn't our highest priority."  
"Everyone, I think I have some good and bad news," Karma said and put up a display window on the large viewer screen. It was a recording of Hunter's ship entering orbit around Xevan and then awhile later suddenly rocketing off.  
"So our team did make it here at least?" Kitty sighed.  
"Yes, this is a recording from orbiting satellites. Why they left so abruptly is unknown but the satellite did do passive scanning as a security measure. Only one person was aboard the ship and the rest had been beamed down to the planet. Never beamed back up. Several hours later, this," she fast forwarded the recording and an inter-spatial rift occurred, a beam meeting one that had rocketed up from the surface.  
"Someone established an energy connection between the planet and Khan's forces?" Paulie said. "A traitor? Or was another X-Man used like Khan originally used Gambit?"  
"The power signature is from a conglomerate of generators on the surface. They allowed the foothold. Dani had episodes of quantum energy expenditures but I think that went away. No one else on the team could be responsible," Karma theorized. "I would say that the instability throughout this whole space elevator and force field is from an imperfect calibration to attach the space elevator."  
"So our people are alive?" Chamber asked. "Do we believe that?"  
"That's literally Hell down there, Jono. Of course there are X-Men alive down there," Iceman chuckled. "We probably started most of that hell in one form or another. Cassandra Nova, Magma, Khan's Forces."  
"Then our problem is threefold," Ari announced calmly. "Retrieving your comrades with the technology to save the children in the cargo bay. Destroy this space elevator and attempted invasion. And righting a world being torn asunder. Suggestions?"  
"Is her middle name 'Janeway'?" Paulie smirked.  
"I would suggest we hurry," Hunter offered. "The massing of the Empires remaining battleships with any allies will be here soon. Six hours by my estimates from interstellar communiqués racing back and forth. And we will be shot out of the sky as contaminated too. Though I am loathing saying that I would not give my life right now for them to come aid of this poor world."  
"That's not our problem, we got kids to save," Paulie reminded.  
"This invasion, much less the Insanity Virus would not be here if not for your people!" Ari said vehemently to everyone on the Bridge.  
"Hey, fuck you, Tweety! We saved your bird ass plenty of times. How many times have the Shi'ar coming whipped begging the X-Men for help or a little Xavier dicking?" Paulie snapped back faster than anyone else could reply.  
"Good Lord! Did he just talk about Prof. X getting some? That ain't right! I'll never sleep again!" Iceman groaned.  
"Terrorists!" Ari shrieked. "You X-Men, all of you, are nothing more than mutant terrorists!! Who have caused the deaths of countless billions! Lest I remind you of first Phoenix and now your precious teacher?"  
"There are at least six X-Men down there, trapped and fighting to help that world right now," Cecelia reminded coldly. You Shi'ar aren't exactly in this whole galactic thing as babies. Face the lumps. You get invaded. I've been reading my "Behind the Empire" history; you've invaded and eradicated any race that wouldn't join your union. And if we cross reference the information on Khan's Empire, we come up with the interesting fact that on the other side of that spatial rift is a duplicate Shi'ar race that's helped him conquer countless worlds. So let's stop bellyaching and moping on the guilt trip about what Storm and her team did and didn't do."  
  
There was a flash of impossibly black mystical lighting throughout the Bridge and all eyes turned to Talisman who was bathed in deep violet energy erupting from her coronet. Her voice was rumbling and furious, both audible and telepathic, sending a dark crawling feeling along all of their flesh. "Perhaps you didn't hear me the first time. I am the Protector, the Avatar, and the Righteous Hand of Fury of All that is Natural! I don't give a fuck about any of your petty human wars, massacres, injustices, histories or associations. One of my worlds is DYING! Now, I can try to save that world alone by blowing this ship apart and watching you all discover the joys of space travel without a ship or oxygen, or you can put all of this shit aside and save what is tantamount to one of my children! Three seconds to choose."  
There was complete silence as her threat sunk in.  
"She's right," Karma was the first to say.  
"And righteous," Paulie added.  
"Half the team to rescue the X-Men below and destroy the space elevator from below and another half to attack the rift and pick us up and get out of here before the Shi'ar arrive?' Kitty suggested.  
"Sounds feasible," Ari agreed and climbed back into her command chair. She knew that they all possessed strange abilities but that was the first time that she had seen that one of them arguably had an agenda that even her fellow X-Men couldn't influence. It was even more frightening then the rage she felt at the X-Men's constant interference in her people's lives. What would happen if another Dark Phoenix was loosed on the universe?  
Nemesis watched silently from a dark corner of the Bridge, her sword drawn and only a twitch away from impaling Talisman who was a dozen feet in front of her. It had crossed her mind when the witch had attacked everyone.  
Kill her.  
But that would come at another time.  
Wasn't that why she was here? To kill several of the X-Men?  
  
Though he loved the tropics, Carlos hated excessive heat. The fact that he was basically in a glorified technological thermometer stuck into Xevan that was right now going through the mother of all fevers didn't escape him. Sooner or later this was going to pop in some way. They'd passed hundreds of repair crews rushing to the base of the space elevator with coolant and repair equipment and still the interior temperature of the space elevator, almost a mile above the surface of the world, was well into a hundred.  
The three X-Men had ditched their transport and were hiding in a storage room, resting and going through computer schematics to try and navigate the quickest route to their destination, the ship Peter had ready for them. Two miles above.  
"Think we'll make it?" Frenzy asked them both. Her finger lightly trailing the holographic display of their route further up, various zigs and zags to avoid patrols and scanners that might pick up their false credentials.  
"If Peter's machinations haven't failed us. Are we going to make it, Peter?" Carlos chuckled as he clapped the young man on the shoulder.  
Peter turned his eyes to them and the irises were startlingly completely metallic, some sort of side effect from constant use of his power. "I don't know. The damage from below has changed so many things. So many routes I'd planned out. I basically put a metal "string" through the elevator that only I could see to follow. But it's been breached in some places, Whole sections were damaged and ejected into space. Also there are huge atmospheric storms raging outside, disrupting my electronic eye connection. I interface with metal. This metal though is too big for me to keep it all in my vision. I don't understand their technology well enough to do much better."  
"Do your best," Carlos nodded, knowing that the boy was being pushed well beyond his limits. Peter hadn't had the extensive training with the nuances of his abilities. None of them, Peter included, were exactly sure what he could and couldn't do, Carlos had noticed that in their ascent. Peter was always double checking himself. Lack of confidence, inexperience and exhaustion were beginning to wear on the young mutant.  
"Why don't we do something unexpected?" Frenzy suggested.  
"Such as?"  
She traced her finger up along their next highlighted route and then pushed her finger through the exterior wall. "Like to rock climb?"  
  
Amara awoke and turned, her face touched the cool ground. She forced herself to her knees. Then looked up and wished that she hadn't. Chaos. Everywhere. A war in the rolling volcanoes and earth quakes for as far as the eye could see. She reached for the connection the earth and found it gone. Something had superceded her control. The crackling pinkish energy field in the sky gave her an idea of what it could be. Kriss' damnable force field. It was altering the magnetic poles.  
Bastard.  
If he were still alive, she would've killed him again.  
Her vision felt blurry and as she wiped blood from her forehead she had an odd taste in her mouth. Poison. From Deathbird's talons. Next to her, Deathbird was crouched watching her expectantly.  
"Well, Red Queen? We can continue to fight on a world all but dead or we can find a way off," Deathbird grinned.  
"You tried to kill me, bitch! What game are you playing?" Amara's eyes flashed with power but even the low level display gave her a sharp pain in her head. She'd not only overextended herself but her ties to a planet falling apart was taking a physical toll on her. She wasn't even sure if she could defend herself against the warrior before her.  
"I tried to kill you for my brother's eyes. If I wanted you dead, you would be. I didn't expect you to lash out with all of your earthen powers at the world itself," Deathbird grinned, her admission as much of a an apology as she would ever give.  
"Self preservation," Amara spat trying to get the vile metallic taste out of her mouth.  
"Understood and commendable. You remind me of Storm in such an elementally furious way."  
"High praise from you, I gather."  
"D'Ken, though revived is still mad, if not firmly balanced in controlling that madness. He was already plotting to kill me to insure his rule."  
"Lovely family."  
Deathbird cackled. "He will rule the Shi'ar, bring together the shattered remnants, I'm sure. I, however, am not as protected as Lilandra, even in these perilously uncertain times."  
"Life, like you, is a bitch. What has this got to do with me?"  
  
"I understood the sum of Kriss' offer to you. Resources, allegiances. He of course wanted your world but there are smaller ways to begin."  
"Such as?" Amara sighed, everyone had an angle.  
"The day when either my brother or a madman like Kriss gathers the tatters of Khan's Empire, will come. And they will come for Earth, better prepared than not. I have three choices. Die at D'Ken's hands eventually. Run and die hunted. Asylum and allegiance to someone who can protect me as I protect her," Deathbird grinned and swept open her wings then made a grand gesture of kneeling lower than the crouching X-Man. "I offer myself as personal guard to you, Lady Amara, Red Queen of the Hellfire Club, X-Man and soon to be Ruling Regent of Earth."  
"Oh, my," Amara sneered.  
"Collect chess pieces where you can, my Queen," Deathbird's hand reached out, shaking, a small control pad handed to Amara. "My agreement of fealty to my brother. It controls the explosive collar around my neck, imprint your finger and your thoughts keep my head attached."  
"How......elegant," Amara tittered. "Why me though?"  
"You need allies and I can't trust anyone else on this world to see my value and not bow to the demands of my brother to kill me. We're far enough away that he can't activate it. But not for long, if I know him. So my life, is truly in your hands."  
"Delicious," Amara said and pressed her thumb to the pad. There was a slight electrical shock and she saw a flash of her own self through Deathbird's eyes. "What was that?"  
"We are bonded. Aren't the Xevan's clever? As long as you live, so do I." Deathbird smiled.  
"My enemies enemy is my ally?" Amara offered.  
"Yes and hopefully savior."  
"Canny woman, aren't you?"  
"Isn't that what a woman of your ambitions needs by her side?"  
"Touché."  
  
"Ok, I un-volunteer for this assignment," Spike said over her comm link, she, Talisman, Shadowcat, and Hunter had beamed down to the surface in full space suits. The city was a charred ruin. Dead bodies everywhere, intermittent momentary earth quakes, signs of huge battles between the Xevan's and Khan's forces and the crackling crimson sky didn't help either.  
Shadowcat checked her suits wrist comm display, she's made several additional changes to the space suits including linking them into the X- Men's comm links. "I'm picking up four signals. Split. Faint. Above and due north. About a mile roughly in both directions."  
Talisman kneeled down and deactivated the protective shielding from the helmet. She choked at first on the smoky air but she needed contact with the world to help save it. She quickly stripped off her space suit.  
"Liz, is that a good idea?" Shadowcat asked nervously.  
"I'm fine, Kitty, I can protect myself mystically from the heat and radiation. I have to be in physical contact to help this world," she floated up several feet, letting her mystical senses reach out in silver tendrils from her finger tips.  
"Can she truly heal a world?" Hunter asked.  
"No," Talisman said mournfully. "Bu I can put it into stasis while you turn off this damn space elevator and get Magma to stop the earth quakes and volcanoes."  
"Liz, put your suit back on. We'll be able to beam you back up when-- ----," Hunter started.  
"Unnecessary, I know where the ship is. I can transport myself back. Go. Find the others, help them. Magma is terrified, this world is reflecting her terror."  
Shadowcat looked back for a short moment at Talisman, nodded then ran up the deserted street followed by Hunter and Spike.  
  
Xevan Orbit:  
  
Northstar and Iceman moved rapidly through the abyss of space, both in Shi'ar space suits, racing under the speedster's power towards the top of the space elevator that was partially obscured by a dimensional rift.  
"Scared?' Iceman asked over the comm link.  
"Why would I be, Drake, I'm speeding into what is literally a spatial equivalent of nuclear reactor, dragging along a sentient ice cube for back up. What could go wrong?" Northstar said dryly.  
Jean-Paul, we're X-Men this is what we do! Fantastic view, don't you think? The planet below? I mean without taking into account it's literally being ripped apart," Iceman said, watching what had become a swirling coruscating color scheme of the crimson force field, crackling lightning and volcanic smoke from the surface.  
"Chamber, Paulie, Nemesis, are you three in place, yet?" Northstar said over his comm link, the chronometer on his visor saying that they should be in place.  
"We're here," Nemesis answered in her flat tone. Her small group had beamed directly into the planet's atmosphere, next to the space elevator's force field projectors.  
"Let's wreck the bastards!" Northstar grinned.  
"You know, Northstar I was thinking---------," Iceman didn't get a chance to finish as Northstar stopped short and let their incredible velocity, hurl Iceman forward towards the spatial rift.  
"You really are a cocksucker!" Iceman groaned and a moment later his body expanding beyond the Shi'ar suit, growing into literally an ice wave. Within less than a minute, he'd drawn thousands of tons of moisture around him and it slammed into the space elevator and the rift.  
Northstar waited patiently, several miles away from what were becoming pyrotechnics and explosions of the space elevator to the other dimension, part of the power supply being cut.  
"Now!" Northstar shouted to Nemesis.  
  
Paulie arced around, speeding back towards the mid section of the space elevator, forcing his mind to not think about the fact that they knew unless evacuations were made, they could be killing thousands. However now it was war. This world, the San Madre children, the X-Men that were left below or these Khan soldiers. With the gauntlets eradiating his entire body, he roared and directed it forward at the space elevator, a bright golden flash coming from the opposite side of the space elevator.  
  
Nemesis clutched the woven harness line that connected her to Chamber who was releasing all of his energy at the space elevator as Paulie suddenly blasted through the other side.  
"Chamber?" Nemesis said into her comm link.  
"Still alive," he said from a hundred feet below her, dangling from the line. "Its no problem to keep blasting away. Been a long time since I've been able to let go like this."  
"He was releasing blast after blast and right at the edges of his concussive blasts against the space elevator, Nemesis could feel his telepathy washing over her. She could feel his attention becoming more and more piqued by the images he was seeing within her mind. The psi shields she had as well as the dampening field her mask put up wasn't enough with all of the energies of so many varieties around them. He was seeing who was under the mask.  
That couldn't be allowed to happen because of her ultimate mission.  
Nemesis? What's that I'm seein' in you, girl? I didn't know me telepathy was that good? The others don't know? How could you keep something so big hidden so well? You must tell them! he said to her telepathically.  
"Yes, you're a good man, Jono. Unfortunately, we have a problem."  
"What did you say, luv?" Chamber asked, their comm link reception being spotty to each other, must less anyone else.  
Nemesis suddenly rocketed down towards Chamber, drew her sword and before he could even react, plunged it into his chest, causing a brilliant explosion.  
  
Paulie picked himself up, slightly dazed from having crashed through so much metal. Shock troopers were unconscious all around him. Or dead. It looked like they were all evacuating back up through the dimensional rift. The space elevator suddenly trembled violently and the floor tilted.  
"Looks like this world trading center is coming down," Paulie groaned as he stood up. He stood up and opened his scanner, looking for other X- Men comm links. He looked around the room he was in, more seats than people knocked out. They wouldn't be here much longer. He went over the a computer screen and took out a slim wallet sized doodad that Kitty had put together. He slapped it onto the screen and watched as it lit up and released her nano-virus into the system.  
"I think the invaders now have a problem," Paulie snickered.  
  
Peter's head craned suddenly.  
"We have a problem!" he shouted a moment before all the explosions above them began. Thousands of tons of metal, some of it actually liquefied by the intense heat, began pouring down towards them. Carlos grabbed the make shift climbing control they had rigged through the two lines attached to Frenzy who was their anchor and waved violently outwards at her. There wouldn't be much time for this to work.  
"Weaken the walls, Peter!" Carlos shouted and Peter nodded, his hands flashing and the area around all three X-Men seeming to become thinner. The anti gravity and magnetic supports they were using to climb with, fell by the wayside.  
Frenzy, acting as the lead climber, grabbed the cables her teammates were dangling from her waist on and swung them away from the space elevator. Without hesitating she dug her hands into the wall and ripped it open, the dense metal made weaker by Peter, so that her incredible muscles tore it even easier than she was normally capable, allowing her to bore through more, faster. Carlos and Peter in a flung arc, came slamming into her a moment later, causing them all to tumble back inside. All three watched as tons of metal plummeted outside of the space elevator, smashing into where they'd just been.  
"That was too close for comfort!" Frenzy groaned, they'd been climbing for hours without incident, without notice from Khan's forces within. She'd come to believe that they were home free.  
"This just gets better and better, doesn't it," Carlos groaned. They'd been climbing for hours, the air gradually getting thinner and thinner and the cold more intense around them, he was worn out.  
Peter's eyes flashed metallic and he nodded. "Kitty's here. She's released a virus into the mainframe system. A Shi'ar coded virus, she couldn't have invented anything fast enough to go through the system unless it was partially based on the technology they use. We're about ten stories from the ship, I've gotten for us. Be right back!" With that Peter seemed to get blurrier and blurrier until he faded back into the walls itself.  
"That is a freaky power," Frenzy grunted.  
"The others are here, that means we're all but out of here," Carlos said confidently, then he felt something sharp happening on the psychic plane.  
Chamber?  
Was that a scream from Chamber? There was so much interference, physical and psychic it was hard to tell.  
  
"Are you there, X-Men? This is Paulie!!!" Paulie shouted as he floated on an energy field slowly down the center of the space elevator. He could almost make out the raging fires and molten lava consuming the base of the tower and there was a huge gap above him almost a mile up where Icemen had wrecked part of the top. It was still immeasurably big. Like trying to smash a standing city to bits. He knew that it would take more time and resources than the X-Men had but the plan wasn't to perfectly destroy this contraption. Just wreck their ability to maintain an invasion or transport troops to the planet below.  
"There! One of the invaders," an armored commander of a full squadron, yelled to his troops as they came charging towards Paulie on anti gravity sleds.  
"You talking to me? You talking to me?!" Paulie smirked, reversed course and headed into the squad.  
  
Shi'ar Battleship Armada:  
  
Within a solar day of the alert of Xevan's invasion, a hundred ships had been launched from the outer posts to aid. Normally Xevan would've been defended within an hour at the most but due to the Insanity Virus, the Empire's resources were stretched thin. Several thousand worlds under direct control or allegiance with the Empire couldn't be risked with lack of security, but close to two thirds of the worlds had been infected, draining the resources of the other one third beyond future repair. There were theorists within the Empire and outside of it who calculated that the Shi'ar Empire would complete fracture and collapse within less than a decade if not for a massive influx of aid. The Kree having been decimated and under the rule of Deathbird were at best a band aid and other large empires were patiently waiting to see if the fabled Shi'ar could save themselves.  
They hadn't expected for the fourth child of the Royal Family to return from his studies in the farthest corners of the universe and demand the reigns of the Empire. At first there had been dissention, questions of rights and forms of how matters should be handled. All opposition had been destroyed immediately.  
Canaan allowed for no opposition to his word, to his right to rule. He'd built up a force of a thousand ships in his journeys and as proof of his right to lead the Empire, he'd sworn to drive off all invaders. Slim, and tightly muscular he was physically smaller than Gladiator laying before him, his head feathers shorn low, his deep cinnamon skin contrasted by flashing emerald eyes. His aides, twin telepaths, stood behind him, quiet with obsidian skin and featureless faces, only two purple glowing eyes on their faces, even their genders hidden below billow robes.  
Canaan looked at the Empire's greatest warrior and nodded. "Wake him."  
There was a sizzling energy through the air, purple flashes and Gladiator spasmed and then sat bolt upright. He looked into Canaan's face and was at first shocked and then overjoyed. He climbed from the bed and kneeled, "You have returned, my liege."  
"Yes, Gladiator. It took time for word of the Insanity Virus to reach me in the deep regions of where I was..........exploring. I never expected there would be no one of the Royal Family left but me to rule. That was never to be my role."  
"Yes, it has been dark times for the Empire," Gladiator agreed.  
"We are under invasion from another dimension it seems. From intelligence sources it seems that they are affiliated with the Shi'ar Empire in that alternate dimension as well. I propose we rebuff them and lead this invasion back to their dimensions. To plunder them as they would plunder us!" Canaan said with a dark smile. "There are a thousand ships with me and more mounting for a second wave assault after freeing Xevan. I need you as the praetor of my Imperial Guard to lead this force. Are you with me?"  
"Yes, my liege."  
  
Ari looked around her bridge, several vital systems were exploding and the ship was listing. "Report, Karma!!" she shouted through the smoke.  
"Its photon blasts from the Acanti striking us from behind. We can't keep going closer to the atmosphere and space elevator, we're attracting radiation spikes from the energy field's it's projecting!" Karma screamed from the circular consoles she was sitting in the center of.  
"You're doing fine, Karma, relax! The Brood cannot be allowed to punch through the shield!" Ari barked.  
"It's Mother!" Raphael shouted from a seat where he was strapped in. "But there's something bigger.......darker holding her mind! It wants the children!"  
Ari grumbled a Shi'ar curse then tapped in codes on to her arm rest. The ship lurched violently to starboard then the engines seemed to slow as retro thrusters blasted violently and spun the ship around. "Eat this, bitch!" Ari shrieked and opened fire with a full salvo of plasma bursts at the space whale directly behind them.  
"Ari, they've activated a tractor beam! They're trying to pull us in to the gaing mouth!" Karma shouted.  
The comm link blared with Northstar's voice. ""Is there still a lock on the extra suit, I have for Bobby?"  
"What.....? Yes!" Karma shouted, she was in charge of monitoring the X- Men's signals for beam up and the ship's defenses.  
"You have a plan?" Ari asked.  
"Karma, I'll distract that living beast!" Northstar shouted as his speed increased tenfold and he flew in a wide arc and then directly towards the ice and rubble near the top of the damaged space elevator. He whirled around huge chunks of debris, thousands of tons, using the vortex to first hold then capture the debris and snap it at the Acanti, a rain of wreckage.  
  
Karma having gotten his hint had run up to the viewer screen and with a deep, centering breath project her possession power at the Acanti, the living beast she could sense near the ship.  
SUCH AGONY!!!!!!!! Tran screamed within her, the psionic connection between the twins and the space beast instantaneous.  
"AHHHHHHHHHH!!" Karma screamed dropping to her knees, the Acanti was the size of a small city, but she refused to buckle and redoubled her mental efforts at it's mind. Through the pain, Tran, we must go through the pain!  
I am with you, sister! Tran assured and focused all of his mental strength at pushing like a knife through the pain that had become part of their calm co-existence.  
Raphael shrieked on the bridge and eldritch energy erupted from his body, sending him ripping from his protective restraints to the floor. "It's the Brood Queen, using Holy Mother's magicks!!!!"  
Ari instinctively hit a secret panel under her command chair and a hand blaster dropped out. Karma, sweating and bleeding profusely from her nose and eyes, turned and stared helplessly at Ari. In an instant, Ari knew that she was aware that the captain could retake her ship. Her first instinct had been to shoot both of them, the X-0Men having no other hold over her ship. The fleet was only minutes away. Ari could still save herself.  
Kill her! Strike her down, sister! Tran screamed, ready to lash out at Ari with their possession power and cease her heartbeat and brain functions, the deadliest use of their power.  
No, Tran!  
She will kill us!  
Ari stayed crouched behind the chair, shielded from the eldritch bolts erupting from Raphael and finally made her decision. She turned to her chair and slammed her hand on several panels, missiles bombarding from the ship at the Acanti giving Karma the edge to push her mind harder and harder at the reeling living ship.  
"I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!" Iceman shouted over his comm link, having reintegrated his body into the extra space suit Northstar carried for his reforming and now launching a wave of ice at the Acanti's tail fins. The sudden tonnage threw the Acanti out of control from the massive amount of weight, hundreds of tons that had suddenly formed around it.  
"Just a little more, precious one! HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!" Karma shrieked, having found the Acanti soul, its mental core and joined in an alliance against the only thing that it wanted. To destroy it's tormentors, however possible. Karma, now able to help it assert control over it's subjugated higher functions, its ability to soar the stars, helped it give one final burst of speed and throw its body onto the ragged space elevator, like a knight falling onto a sword. The combined weight and impact as well as mixture of energy caused the needle to not only crumble but the planetary energy field to first flash violently then flicker and finally vanish.  
Karma slammed to the far wall, an errant eldritch bolt from Raphael's body having hit her. The connection between Holy Mother suddenly severed Raphael stood up shrieking, energy erupting from his fingertips and then he fell to his knees, reigning back in the power.  
"Are you in control or do I have to kill you? You're not an X-Man," Ari said calmly, standing, her blaster locked onto his kneeling form. Raphael began laughing hysterically, pounding his hands to the ground then looking up and laughing again as he stood up weakly.  
"To the contrary, Captain! You now have two X-Men in form on board!" the body of Raphael stood up but a flash of psi energy flashed over it and it became the spitting image of Karma's brother, Tran and then the flesh turned back to Raphael's features. "It seems that magick has given me a new body!"  
  
"Glad to see you can pull yourself back together," Northstar said as he swooped over to Iceman and grabbed him by the arm. "Your ice wave did superbly well but we still have an open rift, with access to this dimension."  
Iceman looked up at the severed space elevator slowly crumbling towards to the planet's surface, lack of gravity causing some pieces to spiral away and then back towards orbit. There was still machinery and visible armed forces extending from the crackling dimensional rift above the planet.  
"I think we should look into plugging up that hole, Northstar," Iceman suggested.  
"How? More ice? Can you generate more?"  
There's plenty of moisture, crystallized, here in space, but can you get us in and then back out before anything happens?"  
"I am speed," Northstar snickered as they sped towards the rift.  
  
Canaan stood on the bridge of his flagship as all one thousand of his fleet dropped out of hyperspace, a comfortable distance from the mess that was Xevan. He watched calmly as the hijacked Shi'ar battleship fought off the pursuing Brood ship and then the X-men, according to his telepaths, used psionic and then external means to attack the Acanti and encourage it to commit suicide. Canaan let a thought slip to his telepathic aides and a moment later pictures of Karma, Northstar and Iceman appeared in holograms next to him on the protruding deck that served as his command post. They were fascinating creatures.....humans. It seemed that his sister Lilandra's affiliation with them had many times lead to excellent progress and defense but recently one of their number had brought about the Insanity Virus that was destroying his people.  
Two dozen Imperial Guard members lead by Gladiator walked onto the deck and Canaan turned and looked at them all as they kneeled before him. He was used to command of a fleet but the constant royal genuflecting would take getting used to.  
"Praetor, clean the vermin off of my world," Canaan said calmly.  
"At your word, my Emperor," Gladiator said and all thirteen members of the Imperial Guard flew through the decks force field streaking towards the planet below. Canaan let his thoughts slip back to his aides who relayed his orders at a thought, his entire fleet possessing relaying telepaths as well as the best Shi'ar fleet officers he could assemble from his own exploration squad and the remnants of the outer Empire.  
The plan is simple. The Imperial Guard will secure the planet. Medical ships take up orbit on the far side of Xevan away from the conflict. The rest are with me, we must keep that rift open for the second wave that will be here shortly. We have a universe to conquer to save the Empire.  
The fleet rocketed towards the rift; not noticing to small specks caught in-between, until the eruption of the ice wall.  
  
"Ok, this does not look like a good thing," Northstar muttered as the phalanx of battleships rocketed towards him and Iceman in the rift. "Ari, this is Northstar, we need a little help here."  
  
Ari stood stunned on her bridge. Not just at the fact that the soul she knew resided in Karma had now taken over the teenage human but also at the battleship signatures she was getting from the arriving fleet.  
Canaan!  
Her sensors had tracked the Imperial Guard heading towards the planet and the space elevator was all but gone, what was left of it, far below the atmosphere of the planet. She blankly watched as Tran helped his sister back to a strap in chair and then went and manned the console his sister had.  
"Ari, this may be an overwhelming situation at the moment but don't make a mistake----," Tran barked and there was a flash of psi pain from him to her, "----I'm not the most patient of X-Men I will take complete control of you to rescue my comrades. That was but a sample of how painful I can make it."  
Ari's eyes narrowed. No, this one was not at all like the others. Not even the pretense of morality, which made her suspect that what had looked originally like a horrible imprisonment was in fact and word, karma.  
"Understood, Tran. I take it you've watched long enough to be of assistance? The blue flashes on the viewer are more ships hyper spacing in, from the triangulation I would say that it's a back up Brood ship. They generally travel in triads as security to the Brood Queen. If they've warped into this space drama it can mean only one thing......"  
"The Brood Queen is still alive!" Karma shrieked, still feeling psi contact with it.  
"Melodramatic thing, isn't she?" Tran said dryly. 


	11. In The Zone

X-Men: Sanctuary Issue # 11 By Kyle Phoenix War Part 4 "In The Zone"  
  
Roster: Archangel Black Bishop Capt. Ari Chamber Frenzy Hunter Iceman Karma Magma Nightcrawler Northstar Paulie Peter Rasputin, Jr. Psyche Raphael Shadowcat Spike Talisman  
  
Carlos had been in tough spots before. In fact he liked to think that his serial immortality had made him something of a problem solver in his lifetimes, the risks and dangers always overwhelming and odds seemingly insurmountable. Admittedly, several times he'd died. A few when he had thought victory firmly in place, others when death was sure. His time though with the X-Men----------he felt like in the past few weeks he had bounced through uncertainty to the point that he was never sure when or if he'd die in the next moment.  
When ice had begun raining down from above and Carlos had gotten faint empathic feelings of the other X-Men squad both above and below, his hopes of escaping this alien ridden base and now crumbling death trap, getting on to the business of rescuing Danielle had sharply risen.  
Almost painfully so. And to some degree, Warren as well, their time to bond shorter but still as intense as deep as the one he felt with Danielle. Though Warren's reticence to such a deep psi bond with a man making it seem lighter. The psi bond was the strongest Carlos had felt with another human being sine his days in the French Court, before the Terror with a telepath who could create psi bonds between lovers. Psi bonds that were so strong, the pair could never separate. Carlos suspected that somehow he'd inadvertently done that with Danielle and Warren. The two young mutants would eventually become lost without the stability of the rest of the triumvirate but Carlos had even deeper worries for himself. For what he carried within. Since the bond had been established the doors keeping it at bay had triple din strength, giving him peace for the first time in centuries. Without the others though, the Beast was hammering away at Carlos' mind literally. Pounding incessantly.  
Warren's betrayal was orchestrated, Meridian being the only thing that could've snatched him away from them. Carlos would have to get back to Earth and deal with her to free Warren first before finding Danielle wherever Marat had stolen her too. And instead of focusing on reuniting the other two pieces of his soul, hre he was on an alien world dodging patrol and repair squads of a space elevator that was doomed to failure as soon as it had been built on a planet of the insane.  
He and Frenzy, old hats now at moving slowly from level to level avoiding damage control teams, who still seemed intent on repairing the massively damaged space elevator, towards the ship Peter had ready for them hadn't expected the second impact minutes later. They could now both look up a mile above them and see space. Organic material and metal had showered down after that impact. The top of the elevator ripped and blasted off. At first Carlos had no idea what the hell it could've been, until the next wave of showering had come down.  
Brood. Hundreds of them. Most were dead, ripped into pieces but dozens were alive and engaged in a fierce battle with the remainder of the invasion troops that had survived. It was a fight of such confused, violence that Carlos had wisely decided to avoid it all together. Both sides were going to lose and die here. He and Frenzy still had the revitalizer and now their teammates were out there looking to retrieve them. That was their first and only concern.  
"Here!" Peter shouted as the two X-Men ran onto a hangar deck. He was waving frantically need to a sleek fighter ship.  
"You don't carjack anything but a Mercedes, huh, Peter!" Frenzy laughed, relieved and impressed as she slapped him on the back.  
"It's an experimental ship called the Avery. Classified. It can do limited Stargate jumps, I thought we might need to do that if the others didn't get back in time," Peter beamed after recovering from the impact of Frenzy's congratulations. The woman didn't know her own strength.  
"Excellent work," Carlos said and moved towards the entrance way when his mystical senses snapped his neck back. "Shit!"  
"What?" Peter said in befuddlement. "I don't smell anything. Maybe it's the alien air fresheners?"  
"No, not the ship," Carlos replied, used to Peter's incessant overstatements. He pointed at where they'd come from.  
"We want the ship, humanssssssssssss!" Holy Mother shrieked, her hands crackling with eldritch energy, she was flanked by a dozen Brood, who were carrying their Queen and a dozen more who were armed to the teeth. Big teeth actually.  
"Oh, fuck, no!" Frenzy roared and took of the revitalizer pack and tossed it at the ship. "There is no way in heaven, hell, or this miserable planet any of them is getting by me. They are the cause of this entire drama to begin with!"  
"Agreed," Carlos snapped, and pulled a plasma rifle from his back.  
"We can easily take the shift from you," Holy Mother sighed. Looking both worn out and strangely energized. "You've lost, mutants. How about you simply surrender and we offer you immediate siring of our young to make you one of our own? That's the only option available to you at the moment. You're outnumbered and outgunned."  
"I can take the eight on the left," Frenzy growled. "Carlos? Carlos?"  
Carlos wasn't sure if they could hold the line and even win this fight. This sorceress had fought toe to toe with Talisman. He could use the Beast's within him magicks' but that could start more trouble than it would ultimately be worth. They were at a stalemate.  
"Lezzzzzzzz dooooooooooo thizzzzzzzz!" a metallic voice screeched behind the Brood and Carlos grinned, he hadn't even looked to see that Peter had metal merged again and vanished. The fact that he was now directly behind the Brood, animating a twelve foot tall, razor covered, hulking mass that was obviously his construction. It looked like he had formed the metal around his body, extenuating talons and body spikes as well as armoring.  
"Peter? Damn!" Frenzy grinned.  
"How do you think I kept the ship protected this whole time?" Peter said over the comm link, his first uttering having been through the metallic colossus' mouth and now he was over his comm link.  
Holy Mother turned and stared at the spiked monstrosity. It was slowly moving closer to them, in between them and the ship. There would be no way fight through the two determined X-Men and take the ship undamaged. These were desperate beings, and the space elevator's continued integrity was also working against them. Becoming the puppet of a Brood Queen had not been her intention but this one had it's psi claws deep into her, to at all costs preserve the Queen. Holy Mother grimaced and gave the psi/pheromone based order that made her group of Brood sidle towards another ship. She could feel the Queen's other guard hyper spacing in, all they had to do was make it to orbit. With the Brood Queen injured, she couldn't risk a protracted battle with the mutants.  
"Stalemate, mutants but while my Queen may've miscalculated in trying to retrieve the San Madre children, we still have those original slaves and therefore, Earth!" Holy Mother spat as The three X-Men were finally standing squarely in front of their ship, the spiked colossus having tipped the scales. A large hangar door opened and Carlos and Frenzy slowly backed in. The Brood made steps forward and several of the Avery's battle guns extended and pointed directly at the Brood.  
"Try me," Peter snapped, his mecha empathy stretched to it's limits as he stood/lay inside the husk of his metal colossus, not merged with the metal but cocooned by it like a giant armor. This allowed him to extend his mecha control back to the Avery that he had been so carefully reworking to respond to his thought controls for almost a day now. While he couldn't use his mecha empathy while merged with an independent metal, he had anticipated trouble and created his spiked colossus and kept it hidden behind the cargo bay supplies in case they had to fight their way out.  
"Peter? You there, mofo?" Paulie squawked over his comm link.  
"Paulie? Yes, I'm here! Where are you? We're about to leave!" Peter said happily into his comm link.  
"One sec....." Paulie said and there was a tremendous explosion at the bay doors that caused them to literally be sucked off of the wall. Paulie floated in on an energy wave, clutching several unconscious invasion shock troopers which he tossed to the ground. "Sorry, it took me so long to find you. Our comm links aren't working too well with all this interference but Ari just signaled me about your location from Kitty's scans. These roaches starting some more shit?"  
"I see you've made some improvements?" Carlos said over the comm link as he settled into the pilots seat, the instrumentation flashing in English (Peter's doing) as the ship powered up to fly. The brood and Holy Mother were slowly backing towards another, less advanced ship, not wanting to antagonize what was slowly becoming a greater and greater threat.  
"You better believe it, Black Bishop! I got the Motts now!" Paulie grinned.  
"Get on board, Peter. Paulie, those bugs think they're leaving here alive. Understood?" Carlos said calmly.  
"Understood," Paulie grinned and charged into the Brood excitedly blasting and ripping at them.  
"Treacherous mutants!!!!" Holy Mother screamed, about to fire an eldritch bolt when Peter's colossus ran into the fray and impaled her on its taloned hand. Simultaneously, Carlos signaled Frenzy at the weapons console and she opened fire n the Brood.  
The space elevator rocked again, more explosions and the entire floor listed.  
"Time to go, kids!" Carlos yelled over the comm link. "Paulie, I need a door!"  
"Awwwwwww, just when I was getting into it!" Paulie sighed and blasted several Brood off him, ripped the had off of another then swooped back and charged at them a second time. This time though he continued through the mass and crashed through the ship behind them and the wall out into the night sky. He turned around and blasted at the hole he made, widening it for the Avery.  
Peter used his colossus to scoop up the Brood and push them away as the Avery went from stock still to blasting off in an instant into the night sky.  
"Let's get the others and------," Paulie started.  
"Don't forget Peter, he's inside that metal husk," Carlos said calmly.  
"No shit? Wow, we're starting to look like a major player team, huh?" Paulie cheered as he dove back inside the hangar and came back out with the human form of Peter who'd been waiting with a grin.  
"Kitty? I take it you're out there somewhere?" Carlos said over the ship's boosted communications system.  
"Carlos? You're finally clear of the space elevator? Good. We have Magma and......a guest, I understand you have the wheels to get us out of here?" Shadowcat said over her comm link. "Magma explained what happened to Dani and Kurt, we have to get out of here and help them."  
"Agreed. On our way," Carlos said as he kept the ship hovering long enough for Paulie to toss Peter to the ship entrance door, shut it and then follow Paulie towards the surface. The power radiating from Paulie was almost blinding but he would make an excellent escort if they ran into any trouble. As they dipped through the clouds they were joined on their bow by Nemesis.  
"I am here," was all she said. Then she added. "Chamber was lost."  
Peter climbed into the co-pilots seat and his hands merged into several ports he'd obviously constructed for his own use. His eyes went metallic again and the ship banked smoother and quicker than Carlos could even calibrate to fly. It was obvious, Peter had worked on establishing a deep rapport with the ship and made several adjustments. It was less than two minutes that they'd rendezvoused with their compatriots on the ground.  
Carlos couldn't help himself as he hugged Magma who was covered in a deep purple cloak. "I was so worried about you, mi reina."  
Amara chuckled. "I had every confidence you'd return for me, Carlos. I'm just sorry that this world has been so hurt by our presence."  
"More X-men, new faces?" Deathbird sneered.  
"Hey, knock it off, Deathbird, Magma's vouching for you is the only thing keeping you getting a seat on this ferry out," Shadowcat snapped. Hunter lagged behind and pointed skyward. "What is it?"  
"The Imperial Guard!" Deathbird shrieked, her keen eyesight making out the guard as they rocketed towards them.  
"We're in no shape for a protracted battle!" Carlos said to Kitty.  
"Agreed. Everyone lets' get onboard! Now!" Shadowcat ordered and they all rushed aboard. "Talisman, we've retrieved everyone. We need Option Seven! Option Seven," Liz!" she yelled over her comm link as the ship lurched as soon as they were all inside.  
Instead of immediately taking the Avery skyward, Peter flew it through the war torn streets, trying to use the fires and general melee to their advantage.  
  
Talisman rose into the sky, her fists holding globes of mystical energy. She had spent her time in meditation with the planet, getting a sense of what could be done to help it. The space elevator's connection to the dimensional rift had put an extreme strain on the magnetic core, but that was over now. With the force field down as well, the damage had stopped, which was her goal.  
She'd never felt so incensed before. It was as if she'd watched a rape occur and this invading force taking advantage of the planet's weakened state wasn't sitting well with her sense of morality either. She'd been communing with the spirit of the world, hearing it's pain, easing it, and telling it that she was here to help, that she would be doing so soon.  
Soon was now.  
She could see the Imperial rocketing towards her, she turned to fully face them, sensing their power welling to strike at her but she had other ideas. Her entire body began to whirl around as she called upon the spell she'd been working on to help this world and alleviate the problem of the Shi'ar attacking them. It was simple. Lock into what Magma had started and then push it, direct it, make it stronger.  
The torrential rains started first, the clouds exploding in fury and the winds joining to start a storm of the wrecked city that had never been seen before. Lightning that rivaled what Storm could summon naturally, Talisman had coaxed the spirit of this planet to release. Then she directed it against the space elevator as a massive earthquake first started and then a chasm miles wide opened below the space elevator.  
The Imperial Guard came to a sudden stop in mid air as the entire elevator fell into the gaping maw of Xevan itself. She could sense the X- Men several miles away now rocketing skyward and the shouts from Kitty over the comm link that Talisman could flee now, she'd achieved their goals.  
Talisman allowed the mystical fuel of the planet to flow into her and fired an energy wave of anger and rage and righteous fury that knocked first the Imperial Guard out of the sky and then continued onwards and upwards. Using herself as a conduit, Talisman kept a sharp focus on her target and her flowing energy wave smashed into the rear of the Shi'ar fleet at the mouth of the rift. Ships not already in the rift were forced in as the energy wave began shutting down all electrical systems until the rift exploded and shimmered out of existence.  
  
A minute earlier:  
  
Northstar was actually proud of the ice barrier that Iceman was throwing up in the rift, disrupting the Shi'ar on one side and the invaders on the other. Literally miles and miles of ice, weighing hundreds of tons was now floating and lying and dropping depending upon the gravity of where they were propelled. They had developed a plan of Iceman creating chunks and Northstar using a whirlwind and slinging method to hurl it at targets with his speed wake. With his super speed then added to Iceman's projections, they were then rocketing by ships, slamming tons of ice on to them and gone in the ensuing melee. Unfortunately that left them distracted and blind to the arriving energy wave.  
"NORTHSTAR!!!!!!" Iceman screamed as he saw out of the corner of his eye the energy wave that Talisman was to use to close the rift. The plan for her to summon the "spiritual energy" of a planet itself had been dicey at best; Iceman had half expected it not to work. The others must've been trying to contact them for their time to egress but the melee had interrupted all but the shortest range communication.  
"We're here!" Ari shouted over the comm link, her ship weaving an impossible flight course through the battle towards the two lone floating X- men. Canaan and Khan's forces were violently engaged in a furious battle to maintain the rift to bring in troops to the opposing side and in the middle of it was Ari's ship. A bird flying through a virtual firestorm to retrieve two lone floating men. "Tran, have you got a lock on their suits?!"  
"I'm trying!" Tran shouted back.  
Ari slammed in more commands to her already overloading console, firing plasma bursts, lasers, missiles at all of the enemies around them---- ----essentially everyone except for the two figures she was steadily moving the ship closer to. She was talking up arms against her own people for these mutants, she'd condemned herself as soon as she hadn't self destructed the ship. Her life was forfeit. But their bravery in defending her Empire's world had lead her to seemingly lose her senses----she would do everything in her power to rescue these two mutant fools.  
There was another series of explosions from behind her.  
"Captain!" Karma shrieked. "One of our engines is down! I think more of the Invasion ships are shoring up from the depths of this rift to defend against the attacking Shi'ar ships. We're in the middle of-------- we're in the middle of a war!"  
"Karma, I'm activating the hyper space! You route all power to the remaining engines! Keep the computer online, Tran, I need the navigation to do this!"  
"Yes, Captain!" Tran laughed hysterically. "It was pleasant getting a body right before I die! Again."  
"No one dies on my watch, damn it!" Ari screamed as her ship began rattling and literally falling apart from the shots form both sides. She could actually see Iceman and Northstar streaking towards the ship from the distance. She took a deep breath, smiled and then fired several missiles directly at them.  
"What are you doing?!!!" Karma shrieked and was about to reach out with her possession power when Tran shouted.  
"I have a lock on them! Beaming those fools in now!"  
"Good," Ari slumped back into her chair and secured herself as she once again performed a maneuver that the specs on her ship were never prepared for. She halted the ship in mid-flight, reversed course with landing thrusters only then jumped to hyper space from a standing position as the energy wave rolled, crashing like a golden cascading tidal wave through the ships that blocked the exit to the rift. The missiles behind her ship detonated as she'd timed them, the concussive force sending the battleship shearing into the wave itself as hyper space kicked in and what was first a smashing into the wave, slowed to a virtual energy slicing.  
"Wow," Tran said as they followed the wave back up through the mouth of the rift in an instant and emerged sling shooting past Xevan. "Where did you learn that maneuver, Captain. Even I'm impressed."  
"It was just invented. Now," Ari grinned in spite of herself. "Karma, power up the engines again and bring us around, Shadowcat is relaying the signal she was given should they obtain a ship to break orbit.  
Talisman suddenly appeared on the bridge. "Did it work? The wards I placed on the ship?"  
"Yes, they did," Ari smiled. "Magic and science meshed quite smoothly to allow your spell to not affect the ship as it did the others."  
Talisman fell into a chair, exhausted. "Thank the Spirits. I was sure I'd killed you."  
"I have a lock on the X-Men in a stolen ship, they're coming into the bay now. We have to get out of here, another Shi'ar fleet force has just dropped out of hyper space on the outskirts of the solar system," Tran reported.  
"Understood," Ari let her fingers dance over several commands on her console after the confirmation of the X-Men docking. "I'm picking up another ship entering the Stargate ahead of us....?"  
"Another ship?" Talisman was shocked and immediately reached out with her mystical senses. "Oh no!!!!"  
"I feel it too!" Tran said. "She still has a connection to Raphael!"  
"What?" Ari demanded. "Not all of us have your precious mutant abilities! Tell me!"  
"Holy Mother and the Brood Queen are alive and heading for........San Madre?......in space? They know where it is and their going for those innocent people and then Earth!" Tran said, his eyes flashing with knowing.  
  
Deep space:  
  
The assembled X-Men sat around a conference room table, three Shi'ar exiles and an amalgam of a villain and a disembodied X-Man, now in tow, the revitalizer in the center of the table to heal the anaesthetized children in the cargo bay. Everyone had made their reports, formerly divided squads now back together but changed. One member dead: Chamber. Psyche and Nightcrawler kidnapped by an Asgardian warrior, Marat. And their leader, Archangel having returned to Earth, abandoning them in their time of need. The Sanctuary X-Men team was new, cobbled together to create and protect a mutant town as well as deal with international mutant crises, had journeyed the stars to protect their charges from the crimes committed upon their bodies by the parasitic Brood.  
"The Brood Queen wants those five thousand people you left hovering by the Stargate we're approaching," Deathbird said calmly. "She wants it because of the genetic potential of humans. Not only your mutant potential but your race has the highest numbers of being altered by biochemical means as well as radiation into super powers. Even if half of them are able to be successfully altered, the Brood Queen will be able to rape half the galaxy. The one thing that has kept the Brood in check until now has been the overwhelming power of the Shi'ar Empire."  
"I think we need to use the revitalizer immediately on the infected children.....and yes, myself. Or I will become a danger to you all," Hunter said, his body visibly drawn and trembling. "I have less than day left before my transformation."  
"We could put Hunter into stasis while Peter shows me how to use this revitalizer. It's going to take about six hours for me to insure that it can and will work before I'd be willing to work it on those kids and Hunter," Cecelia said.  
"What's the ship's status, Captain, can we engage in another fight so soon. There are at least two Brood vessels that were near the Xevan system and then vanished when the Brood Queen left the planet's surface. With a window of about twenty minutes behind them we're going to need everything possible to take them down," Kitty said darkly. Over the past few days, with the chipping down of their numbers, she'd become the de facto leader of the team along with Carlos, the Black Bishop.  
"We'll also have the problem of planetary infection," talisman pointed out. "All of us warping into space near Earth with thousands of Brood and rushing to planet side. It's got problem all over it."  
"You take this planetary protector thing seriously, huh, Liz?' Paulie smirked.  
"It is my destiny," Talisman said gravely. "There is an alternative though."  
"Which is?" Carlos asked, he'd been the most quiet, his thoughts constantly coming back to Psyche and Archangel, the rapport with them felt dead. Did that mean they were? He was also concerned with Magma having taken Deathbird as her personal bodyguard. It was slap in the face to him but that was a Hellfire Club matter. Still it boded ill for his direct future with her. His original purpose with these X-Men had become entangled with their own goals and to some degree his feelings of both loyalty and a sense of possibility with them. He'd turned down Xavier's offer years ago when offered a position in his original five but now....? Perhaps?  
"I can go to Earth ahead and prepare a defense. Maybe even take one or two people with me. I'm not sure. Distance isn't like time, there are more random factors to calculate. But I feel I can do it for myself, a lot faster than this ship can. I have every confidence that we'll be able to avert this threat but my loyalty and allegiance to the X-Men, unfortunately, takes a backseat to my responsibility to Earth," Talisman said emphatically.  
"Who would go with you?" Kitty asked. "We're going to probably need to board the San Madre isle and try and destroy it as well as fight the Brood. We can't do that at low ebb. You could contact the other teams on Earth. Maybe the Avengers, the Fantastic Four? Thunderbolts? Power Pack?"  
"And the Danielle, Warren and Kurt issue?" Carlos brought up. "We don't know what occurred that Warren left us abandoned so abruptly and I have only a minimal sense of them through the psi rapport. I'm worried that as soon as we arrive, we may be looking at being attacked. By Meridian, Sabine or Marat."  
"We certainly have chalked up a lot of enemies in a short time. Sabine, Marat, Meridian, Channel and now Canaan," Frenzy pointed out. "And we still need to decide what to do with Holy Mother. Sounds like the Brood Queen has hijacked her in much the same way Tran is in Raphael."  
There was an uncomfortable moment and Cecelia spoke up. "I've examined Tran....Raphael thoroughly and while I'm not qualified to speak on mutant mutations I don't think it was either intentional, nor permanent. Raphael's mutant ability seems to be acting as a vessel or a conduit for other mutants so during the conflagration, they merged because of Karma being hit with the energy and Holy Mother reaching out to try and usurp his control again."  
"In essence, he snatched me into his body to reinforce his defenses," Tran said slightly bitterly. "He's still here, aware." Tran's face shimmered and Raphael's stoic one appeared. "I believe I am keeping Holy Mother from being able to co-opt him again even in close proximity."  
"And Chamber is lost," Nemesis said calmly, her hand lightly touching her sword that was laid on the table. "We mustn't forget to mourn for him."  
Kitty made a decision. "Talisman, take Raphael, Carlos, Spike and Magma to Earth. That will eliminate the threat of Holy Mother through Raphael and give us a strong force to lead the counter attack. Deathbird, we could use your help and this would be a great way to pay for your passage."  
All eyes turned to the woman who had been ally and adversary to the X- Men more often than anyone else. She grinned darkly. "I have no Empire to return to. And my brother, Canaan, will surely survive and return. Between him and D'Ken my head is up for grabs. I need asylum more than I desire revenge. I pledge myself to the X-Men. For now."  
"I snap Tweety's neck like dry pasta if she tries to step out of line," Paulie promised, his energy gauntlets sizzling with energy.  
"You're welcome to try, human," she chuckled.  
Captain Ari spoke up, sitting at the head of the conference room table. "We should use the Revitalizer on Hunter to see if the children can be saved. Then when we drop back into the solar system and get closer to orbit, the children should be evacuated on the Avery. If it becomes necessary we may have to use the ship to destroy the Brood before they make planet fall."  
Carlos spoke first. "Captain, we can't ask you to destroy your ship for us, your only way home."  
"X-Man, you haven't been paying attention Hunter, Deathbird and I are outcasts from the Shi'ar Empire, I have no "home" to return to," she answered flatly. "I am concerned about the spread of the influence of the Brood. If they get a foothold on your world, they may soon make a move to attack the Empire. Though the Empire has no loyalty to my future, I still have an oath to its'."  
Deathbird laughed. "You always were a hardliner, Ari, I'm glad to see that you're able to bend to help these mutants."  
"They fought for one of our worlds as if it were their own, how could I not?"  
"Let's all get some food and rest, the nest few hours are all we have before an all out war begins," Kitty said, standing and dismissing the meeting.  
  
Xevan:  
  
Canaan stood on the roof of a half destroyed building, a cloak drawn around him as he watched his troops restore order to the streets below. There was a flicker of warning from his two telepath aides and over the horizon came Gladiator. Canaan watched the warrior come soaring closer and closer until he landed, into a respectful kneel before the Emperor of the Shi'ar Empire.  
"My liege," Gladiator said gravely.  
"How does my world look?" Canaan asked calmly.  
"Your added forces have helped to corral and restore order to all the continents. The loss of the ships in the rift, wasn't as bad as early thought."  
"Good. And the prisoner?"  
"The X-Man? Yes, we have him. What should we do with him? He's injured."  
"Heal him. Restore him to perfect help. It is time that the Shi'ar struck back indirectly at the X-Men as well as rid the universe of my sister, Deathbird. While council decree is that Earth is off limits to all Shi'ar and they are to be excommunicated if they have contact with the humans. We shall breed an assassin of unparalleled ability in their own teammate."  
"There is also evidence that the rift is still accessible to open and we've discovered a high ranking leader alive in the city rubble. He has requested an audience with you once his self-healing is completed."  
"Self-healing?"  
"Yes, it seems that he is part reptilian in physiology and has had to grow new limbs due to injury from one of the X-Men. In twelve hours, Kriss would like an audience with you. To discuss an alliance."  
"By all means."  
  
Australian Outback, Sanctuary Base:  
  
A weaving energy spiral erupted over the town, slamming down to the ground, kicking up dirt and scorching the earth. Then winds began to swirl around the scorched spot, as more energy poured out of the gaping energy hole. Talisman appeared and dropped to the ground on one knee, her right arm extended upward the swirling energy still active. She reached out and drew upon the mystical wards she'd placed around the town, essentially energy batteries keyed specifically to her for whatever use she could think of.  
Now she was using it as a grounding force again but the differential of teleporting out of a moving vehicle made it something that she had to disperse the energy from. She gritted her teeth, energy spilling from her fingertips as she focused it towards her wards, to absorb. But she wasn't done, she threw her hand into the energy spirals and mentally focused on pulling, on pulling her teammates through.  
She waved her arms around, calling up the familiar Earth spirits to help her and Carlos, Raphael, Spike and Magma appeared. With a short gasp, Talisman let the energy dissipate and then fell back onto her haunches.  
"Whew. I don't think I could've done that without my wards here!"  
Carlos helped her stand and glanced around, extending his empathic senses. "No one is here. Not Alex Rosten or even Gateway."  
"Isn't it his job to be here?" Spike asked.  
"Twenty minutes to wash up and regroup in the situations room," Carlos said and stalked towards the main building.  
"The man's edge was certainly dulled by Dani and Warren. I never thought I would actually wish for her grating personality verses someone else," Amara sighed.  
"At least we get a minute to get our selves together," Spike muttered. "Not like we haven't been on the go for--------well since this outfit left Westchester. I'm going to go warm up the medical bay, those kids are still going to need medical care when they get here."  
"And me?" Raphael asked.  
"I have him," Tran said and with a flash assumed control of Raphael again and trotted behind Carlos.  
"Great Spirits, they are all either neurotic or down right creepy," Talisman muttered to herself as she kneeled down and let the familiar Terran earth sieve through her fingers. She had actually missed her home world on such a deep profound level that she began to weep. And the battle was far from won.  
  
Carlos' fingers danced over the hybrid Earth/Shi'ar technology and finally he located the two Acanti that had taken San Madre from the Stargate point and were bringing it towards Earth. They were passing through Saturn's solar orbital path and still heading towards Earth. Ari's ship had just dropped through the Stargate which was on the outskirts of the solar system near Neptune.  
"I believe that if I push the engines, I can catch up to the Acanti but there were a lot of damages that we've patched up but not repaired. The Revitalizer is working perfectly on the children and as soon as we are within your Terran moon's orbit the Avery will disembark with Peter and the children aboard," Ari said over the view screen. Her image covered in static due to distance and sunspot activity.  
Spike turned from her seat at another console. "I have a message from Mr. Rosten, seems that a small group of X-Men went to Madripoor to retrieve a long range ship to come and rescue us. Lead by Emma Frost."  
"The White Queen? Dear Emma has finally put more than her barbs into this team, eh?" Amara said having put on a standard yellow and blue costume and leaning over Spike's shoulder. "Emma took Gateway, Juggernaut, Monet and Alex with her. But they haven't signaled that they've left Earth yet. According to Alex's comm link, he's still on the isle of Madripoor."  
Carlos closed his eyes and focused. "I'm getting a fuzzy impression that Warren is there too. The psi rapport isn't completely active though. Like when he was kidnapped. We could most definitely use Emma's group's power in this thing. There's a second airship here, I say I take it to retrieve them. Amara come with me. Talisman and Spike will get our defenses ready here and contact other X-Men. Agreed?"  
"Agreed," Amara nodded. "How much time do we have?"  
Ari looked up at a computation on her viewer screen. "At their present speed? Six Terran hours. I should be able to catch up to them in about five and half. Our subsequent battle will answer whether that last thirty minutes is victory or defeat. Ari out."  
"We can make Madripoor in two hours. Let's go!" Carlos said as he and Amara rushed through the underground network towards the hangar bay.  
Amara chuckled. "Thank God we cleaned up Madripoor so that we'll have no worries there."  
"Yes, I agree. Other than Warren being Meridian's prisoner, I can' think of anything else that would be a problem there."  
  
Madripoor:  
  
Juggernaut smashed Monet through first one tree, then a second, then a third and finally brought her back up and smashed her into the ground. Emma pulled herself up from where he'd swatted her too and lashed out with another psi bolt at him. Without his helmet, he dropped to one knee, gritting his teeth in agony. Whatever the possession that had overcome the islanders Emma had begun to get the impression that it wasn't purposeful, nor directed. It seemed that telepaths due to their level of shielding were invulnerable as she'd learned when she'd reverted from her diamond form to attack the Juggernaut. Monet's original assumption that only she was immune was incorrect. Emma had noted that everyone seemed to be operating normally, simply under the mass control of another.  
Now, the Other........that was where the real problem lay.  
Monet leapt forward and grabbed the Juggernaut's wrists then slammed him onto his back. "Can we do this fast please?" she barked.  
Sabine hurried behind her and held down the Juggernauts ankles.  
"Ok, pay attention to a real telepath, youngsters," Emma said and began glowing with a deep white energy then focused it deeply into Cain Marko's mind.  
"Is he back?" Monet asked, her muscles straining against his effort to rise.  
"What the hell-----?!" he said then looked at the two holding him down. "You know, while this may be a bisexual thrill for some others. I'm not having a moment."  
"He's back," Monet groaned and released him.  
Sabine stood up. "So it seems that the Child's influence is simply a natural defense and not intent?"  
"Yes, I concur, Sabine, it seems that Meridians little bastard is merely exercising the psionic equivalent of creating a security blanket around itself. It's not even a very deep mental control. I think I can snap the entire island out of it, but I'm concerned that the Child will take this as an attack and retaliate. Hold on, I have contact with Clara and Sara."  
"Who?" Sabine asked.  
"Undercover agents. I'm generally Lara. Long story," Monet sighed.  
We could kill the Child and maybe even Meridian too. She's simply standing by the glowing energy field with Warren, Sara reported telepathically to Emma.  
Your image inducers and psi shields are still working? Emma asked.  
Perfectly but the closeness is creating an intense feeling to kill anyone who opposes the Child. It's only because we know we're in an influence field that we're even conscious of the duality of thoughts, Clara reported.  
We should kill them all, Sara reiterated.  
I don't like the thought of killing a child, Emma but I tend to agree here. We could have the next Hitler here. With my hearing the conversation between Warren and Meridian is rather cryptic. I get the feeling that she explained what this child would be long before its unusual birth.  
Then why did he fire on the cottage?  
Emma shrugged. I think it may've been to kill Sabine. Sabine's affiliation with Meridian gives him a resistance to the Child's psi wave. Warren and Meridian may not consciously realize it, perhaps being lost in the glow of parental stupefaction over their hybrid bastard but they're also under the tot's control. Warren probably sees anyone but Meridian as a threat to his child. I take it they're still within the EGG's perimeter?  
Yes, Emma. Looks like the Child wanted the Shi'ar hyper drive. Warren and Meridian have it next to the energy field around the Child. We can't make out the kid for the glow but it looks like they're feeding it or something.  
Can't build a damn thing without the X-Men ruining it. Annoying, Emma sighed, her mind already thinking of the financial loss of her EGG space ship that she'd cobbled together rover the years from abandoned Shi'ar technology. I need options, ladies. I don't pay you to sit on your asses. I pay for results.  
"Mi reina," a deep voice said and Emma whirled around. She actually smiled a genuine smile of relief at the sight of Carlos and Amara. "I take it the psi wave around the island is not your doing?"  
"No, not mine," Emma said and noticed that the two X-Men were holding hands, Carlos obviously extending his formidable psi shields to Amara through touch. "I take it my rescue is no longer needed?"  
Without hesitation, Emma reached out to the Black Bishop's mind, telepathic review faster than speech and with his assent they quickly updated the other and then with a quick sweep, Emma brought her group near and far up to date.  
"I'm not comfortable with Sabine being here. This one is too dangerous in male or female form to be kept alive," Amara said evenly.  
"Whenever you're ready, Red Queen, I am available to see you back up that assertion in action," Sabine grinned.  
"Don't think she stands alone, gender bender," Monet said from behind him. "One slip up and you're gonna be turned over to my friend here. And he's itching to smash someone."  
Juggernaut slammed his fist into his other hand. "I have been on the sidelines too long in this, who are we capsizing?"  
We need to consider how to allocate our resources with this Brood attack coming," Emma sighed. "I'm loathe to try and bring more X-Men near this isle, the Child is opportunistic and I don't want this place full of powerful mutants bent to its will."  
"Agreed," Amara said calmly. "I vote for execution."  
"Oh, my," Monet groaned.  
"Emma, I know you. There's a way, isn't there?" Amara said calmly, ignoring the other's squeamishness. "You're a practical woman. You wouldn't have agents just here to watch your interests. There would also be a way to take out your property from falling into a thieves hands."  
Emma grinned in spite of herself. "Why, Amara, I do believe you're thinking like a Red Queen. There's a telepathic bomb that I can set off. Limited range. It would destroy the lab, maybe twenty yards around it. I doubt highly that Meridian or Warren will react to a threat to leave. Where does that put us with you Sabine?"  
All eyes turned to Sabine, Meridian's bodyguard and assistance. His face slowly fell into a sad frown. "My mistress gave me explicit orders that should such a situation come up, to not hesitate to kill her. Her interests are not as nefarious as you may believe. She will not risk the world for her child or her own life. Activate your bomb."  
"Well, there's employee loyalty for you," Emma snickered. Clara, Sara, we're going Dirty Bomb, evac. Any employees there?  
No, give us ten minutes.  
You were trained better than that, ladies. You have five.  
The X-Men turned and looked to the north where the Frost Industries plant was located, over three miles away. There was first a flash of light that streaked up into the night, iridescent cobalt and then a small explosion.  
"And that is the detonation of a Shi'ar hyper drive as well as a founding member of the X-Men. Charles will never forgive me, I'm afraid. Even when I explain this," Emma sighed tiredly.  
Monet gazed around and nodded to Carlos. "Can you feel it? No more psi suppression field over the isle. The Child is gone and so is the control. Back to normal."  
"Yes and all we had to do was kill and a teammate a child. Aren't we such heroes?" Amara said bitterly yanking her hand free of Carlos'.  
"There are still three hundred children to get home safely and their parents to rescue."  
"Correction, Carlos. Mutant children. Why else would the Brood Queen and Holy Mother be so fixated on them. Holy Mother used her magicks to make them all, and to breed mutants exclusively for her mutant army. They may be riding the rock that was San Madre back to Earth but she's after the private army Holy Mother created or whatever else she can cobble form this world," Emma said coolly.  
  
Kitty sat in the observation lounge, watching the star scape speed by. She was sitting in a lotus position, trying to clear her mind. Trying to prepare herself for the carnage that lay ahead.  
"Hey, sexy, everyone is really impressed with your leadership. We couldn't of made it this far without you holding us together. Warren and Dani were the heart of the team and Kurt their back up," Paulie said as he strolled over to her.  
"I'm not here by choice, Paulie. I'm out of the hero game."  
"You're like Biggie or Tupac, always being pulled back into the game."  
Kitty couldn't but help to open her eyes and giggle. "You're a natural fool."  
"Yeah, but you think I'm cute. So, since we might die in a few hours, wanna fuck?"  
"Any other man I would be insulted by that. I think you're genuinely trying to be intimate with me," Kitty laughed.  
"You're like uber ninja mutant X-men heroine. Why fake some bs line with you?"  
"I'm still just a young woman, Paulie. I left the X-Men because of all the death. All that I'd seen and the fact that bluntly, I wasn't just fucking anyone. Everything was so amazingly complicated by being a mutant. By fighting. Always fighting. So much violence. I got sick of it."  
"And yet you're back."  
"And yet I'm back," Kitty repeated.  
"Is it because of him?"  
"Him who...? Peter? Our new Peter? A little. I didn't want him to get snatched into this life without having a chance to make an informed decision. He worships the X-Men he met so much, his father. But there's more to life than these endless fights back and forth. At first I was confused....emotionally by his resemblance and his need for a friend. Then I felt protective and now after seeing and hearing how great he was when the chips are down, I'm wondering when he dies. Whether I should stay on after this to insure maybe he lives. He's my dead friends son and nephew, don't I owe them that?"  
"Do you? Do you owe Xavier anymore? His dream? His plans? What about your own? Some of us were starting to get into philosophical debates about whether Xavier's way is the right way."  
"Yes, Storm and her team split for that reason."  
"I think that if we stay together on Earth, we're gonna be a lot different than Charlie intended. We could use you with us. We all know the Hellfire Club is bad news, we can't let them be so heavily represented. And now with Deathbird hanging around. Well, we're starting to look a little shabby in the leadership department."  
"Is that what you're here for, Paulie?" Kitty asked him seriously.  
"Some of us were talking, we didn't know how to make it formal, but we want you to stay on after we kick the Brood's ass. We need you."  
Kitty shook her head in disbelief. "I'll think about it."  
"Think about this too," Paulie leaned closer and kissed her, pulling her closer to him. She was surprised at how gentle his kiss was and then he became more insistent and she wrapped her arms around him. It had been a long time since she'd been close to someone. It wasn't unpleasant to think of getting closer to Paulie.  
He sat down on the couch next to her and Kitty climbed onto his lap and leaned back, stroking his hair. "Those gauntlets still itching? You should take them off to give your mutant powers a rest."  
"Take them off? Yeah, not yet, maybe when we're not heading towards an Aliens remake fight," he smirked.  
"Paulie, we talked about this. Those tests I ran. The gauntlets aren't designed for your physiology to maintain contact with twenty four seven. While they are enhancing your ability to maintain and direct your kinetic field, they're not intentionally designed for that. You're essentially doing an abnormality to them that's providing a benefit."  
"Ok, ok, Dr. Kitty, I hear you. Can we get back to the make out feel up?"  
"I'm serious, Paulie!"  
"So am I," he grinned and lifted up his hips and lap suggestively.  
"Excuse me? Kitty? Do you have a moment?" Shan said from the comm link.  
"I'm here, Shan, where are you?"  
"The Avery hangar bay."  
"Be right there, Shan." Kitty kissed Paulie on the nose. "Take these off for at least an hour, Paulie, we've got several hours before we catch up to them."  
With that Kitty phased through his lap and the couch, sinking through the floor below. Paulie sat back in frustration then held up his wrists and the gauntlets let off a slight flashing light at his mental command. He could feel them pulling slight on his body. And it felt good. That part he hadn't told Kitty or anyone else. There was something almost orgasmic about the sensations that the anklets and wrists gauntlets sent through him, the more he used them. Kitty was just being paranoid, wound too tight from being in command.  
Paulie grinned and let a kinetic bolt smash into a chair across the room, destroying it completely. It was getting easier and easier to release the energy in smaller amounts to let off some steam, almost like it was constantly building in him for release. It would be perfect to get into a hardcore battle with the Brood.  
Hardcore?  
Now there was a cool codename.  
  
Kitty phased through the ceiling into the hangar bay where Peter's ship, the Avery was being kept. He'd spent hours remodeling it to his specifications and interaction with his mutant abilities. It was quite impressive how he'd made the military jumper ship much sleeker and angular to deflect radar detection and energy dispersals. Kitty knew that his knowledge form the Beyond was considerably more than his naiveté lead them to believe and that was beginning to worry her.  
Was Peter merely acting dumb? And for what reason?  
"Hiya, Kitty!" Peter smiled and waved as she floated to the ground.  
"Peter!" she grinned, his enthusiasm infectious. How could she even think that he was anything but a new ally and friend?  
Shan walked from the back of the Avery where they had wheeled in the sleeping, cured children. Shan had been put in charge of rechecking the revitalization cleansing as well as keeping the children corralled into unconsciousness with her possession power.  
"Kitty, all the kids are accounted for and blissfully asleep. It's tight in the Avery's cargo hold, three hundred kids is a lot to pack in but Peter will be able to leave as soon as were near Earth. We're worried about Raphael."  
"Why?" Kitty asked.  
"Not just Raphael but the children as a whole. We checked some of the genetic scans of the children. Most of them are mutants and the rest potentials. We think that they may be the Brood Queen's goal. Either the kids or Earth," Shan said.  
"A squeeze play?" Kitty nodded. She looked inside the Avery at the cots full of sleeping children. "So we could be delivering them into Holy Mother's plans?"  
"If Holy Mother is even still in control," Peter reminded.  
"The plan is for Ari to slow down in the Moon's orbit, drop the Avery out and then immediately come around and attack the Acanti before they get any closer to Earth orbit. The differential is only going to be about a thousand miles by then," Kitty nodded. "I wish that we had more time to get more input on this but we're going to have to improvise. Again."  
  
Nemesis sat in the crew quarters she'd been using since boarding the ship a day ago. Her body ached from the exertion of her power so much in the form she'd been using it so that he powers wouldn't appear familiar to the others. Especially Kitty and Amara. It didn't help that once she'd been able to lay down she'd been wracked with guilt over what she'd had to do to Chamber. Impaling him, dropping his body a thousand feet from the tip of her sword on Xevan. Killing an X-Man had always been a possibility when she'd joined with Alex Rosten but she'd never expected it to happen so fast, so viciously.  
She laid back on the bed, her costume thrown over a chair next to her sword, her mask still on. If any of the cabin's surveillance devices were activated she couldn't risk her identity being revealed. Always hiding. She closed her eyes and began meditating on her center, on who she was, on the flow of energy through her.  
Are you there? She heard the voice almost crystal clear.  
Yes, Joshua, I'm here. We're returning to Earth from Shi'ar space.  
The Xevan Incident? The Brood?  
Yes. We're on our way to intercept Holy Mother and the Brood Queen.  
Good. Does anyone suspect?  
No. Talisman isn't as powerful in all the areas she could be. Her powers are still material focused, not mental.  
And Chamber?  
Eliminated.  
I feel your sadness. I'm sorry it must be this way.  
I know, Joshua. I know. What about Alex has he encountered the Child yet?  
Yes, he has. Emma Frost detonated her hyper drive believing that she's ended the threat.  
And instead?  
Put this whole debacle into motion. I'll see you soon, Nemesis. Stay strong.  
I will.  
  
Emma Frost stood in the rubble of what had been one of her most prized possessions. She knew logically that she'd had no choice but to detonate the Shi'ar warp drive, the area not even having a residual trace of radiation, but killing three people and losing a potential multi billion dollar fortune was distressing.  
"Ms. Frost? Are you ok?" Alex Rosten asked her from behind. "We should be heading back to Australia to prepare for the Brood attack."  
"Yes, I know, Alex. It never ends, does it?"  
Clara and Sara walked over.  
"We're ready to help out," Sara grinned.  
"I take it your image inducers can be dropped now?" Alex asked and Emma nodded. With a short flickering of the illusion of two mousey Marrow and Jessica Drew revealed themselves.  
"I'm sure you know these two, Alex. Your files on everyone are quite extensive," Emma sighed.  
"I'm surprised but not overwhelmed. It's good to see both of you found work. I'm sure you'll be of a great asset to us at Sanctuary," he smiled broadly as they walked back to where the X-Men and Sabine were assembled, Gateway sitting patiently on the ground.  
"And way we go," Emma muttered as Gateway spun his bola, whisking them off to Australia.  
At the point where the Shi'ar hyper drive had detonated there was a wisp of energy that spiraled upwards for several long seconds, the portal opening briefly and then Meridian appeared, clutching Warren. She dropped to her knees, taxed beyond even her considerable limits.  
"What happened?" Warren gasped, visibly bruised and beaten.  
"Our child encouraged Emma Frost to activate the power of the hyper drive to allow him to time travel. They think they destroyed him, when in fact, they did nothing but help him. Crafty little bastard."  
"We can contact the X-Men and get on this right away," Warren said as they both shakily stood up.  
"If only life were so simple, there's another player coming into this mess."  
"Another----? How do you know?"  
"The same precognitive power that showed me all of this has shown me that. Unfortunately, you need to be elsewhere, my darling."  
"Elsewhere?" Warren was confused as Meridian grabbed his forehead and focused her power through him. There was a blue flash and Warren felt a slamming motion against his body. When he opened his eyes, he was stunned at what he was seeing. Earth below him as he streaked towards it on the isle of San Madre, he turned and sure enough, he was facing hundreds of Brood.  
"Oh, shit!" he spat, his memory foggy as to how he'd even gotten here or where he'd been for the past few days. The last thing he remembered was watching the viewer screen in orbit of Xevan.  
  
Xavier Institute, Westchester, New York:  
  
"It's good to see you, Roberto, but a surprise," Cyclops said calmly.  
  
Roberto smiled and nodded. "X Corp keeps me very busy. But I was hoping you could help me with this case. I understand that Prof. Xavier has several undercover mutant operatives. I need to make contact with one of them."  
"Is there something going on that I can help with, Roberto?"  
"It's a matter crucial to the Sanctuary team. I have to get something prepared for them. Can you help me?" Roberto grinned and behind his eyes Channel laughed joyously. The mutants running through this place were perfect for his plans. If only he could find the perfect one that he wanted. So many toys to choose from, so little time. 


	12. Toxic

X-Men: Sanctuary 

Issue # 12

By Kyle Phoenix

"Toxic"

**Roster:**

**Alex Rosten**

**Archangel**

**Black Bishop**

**Captain Ari**

**Chamber**

**Deathbird**

**Emma Frost**

**Frenzy**

**Hunter**

**Iceman**

**Jessica Drew**

**Juggernaut**

**Karma**

**M**

**Magma**

**Marrow**

**Nemesis**

**Nightcrawler**

**Northstar**

**Paulie**

**Peter Rasputin, Jr.**

**Psyche**

**Raphael**

**Sabine**

**Shadowcat**

**Spike**

**Talisman**

**Somewhere:**

**Her legs hurt. She'd walked at least twenty miles since sun up and now at dusk, a rabbit roasting over a pitifully small fire, Danielle felt a furious anger. Anger at Marat for leaving her here, anger at herself for breaking her word to him that would incite him to bring her here, anger at the X-Men for not finding her, anger at her own failure with the whole Brood matter. While she had confidence in the abilities of the others, she was deeply worried about the San Madre people and the threat of the Brood. She ate a few dried leaves she'd kept in her small waist pouch, took a swig of water from her dried skin flask and watched as the rabbit slowly roasted. **

**A small flash of light in the night above caught her eye and she squinted as it came closer until it seemed to splash into the small campfire and erupt.**

**Standing before her, the flickering flames creating his form, a tall, bald black man in dark coveralls.**

**"So this is where you are," he smiled almost playfully.**

**"Nice to know someone is looking for me," Dani grunted, slowly climbing to her feet. "You know me and you are?"**

**"Joshua."**

**"Well, Joshua, you've obviously gone to a lot of effort to find and contact me. Speak."**

**"Blunt as ever, Dani, I've missed you."**

**"Have we met?"**

**"No, not in your prime timeline. But we were very close friends and allies in mine. Unfortunately we have a problem that affects us all. A problem that originates in your timeline and consumes mine. Billions die. Trillions if you multiply that by timeline."**

**"Meridian," Dani whispered some deep part of her having sensed that the phantom enemy wasn't someone who was just a normal super villain.**

**"Yes, she is the catalyst. She is the one who begins a cataclysmic war. A confrontation. Her child. He can travel through time, by accident, and does quite a bit of damage. He can cross timelines. Think of a being with no compunction about wrecking havoc."**

**Dani's hands went reflexively to her head, holding it. "She was using Warren. He's.........the father of this child?"**

**"Yes. The father. She chose him or Fate chose him because of his fluidic genetic structure. While Warren has locked himself into manifesting it in an avarian way, it is not his absolute limit. Other timeline Warren's have gone further, manifested more. Think of your Warren as a clean specimen for Meridian to manipulate genetically in the exact way she wanted."**

**"Ok, Joshua, great tale. Awe inspiring. And I am concerned. I'm also trapped Spirits knows where by my pissed off husband as a punishment. I'll do what I can to get back but I'm literally in the middle of nowhere."**

**"Are you?' Joshua grinned. He lifted his arm and flames licked out across the sand coalescing into a stoic, seated Gateway. "A relative of mine. A relative in spirit, blood and ability."**

**"Marat will just come for me again. And what about Nightcrawler? He's missing too. I figured he must be somewhere out here. If I can ever find civilization."**

**"You have allies in me and in your teammates but there's a cost to trying to cross Marat's spell. We can't keep you in your timeline for long."**

**"What's not long?"**

**"You'll be drawn back here until we can find a way to make it permanent or Marat lifts the spell. Like you, Gateway and I are mutants, my abilities simply allowing me to access the power to intercede but not to fix."**

**"Talisman?"**

**"She's young in your present. She's improvising far more than anyone is aware of, even her. She requires high level training, discipline that the challenges of the future won't give her time to dedicate herself to."**

**"So I can continue wandering towards the east here for God knows how long or return to my time for short periods of time until we can figure out a way to ground me there?"**

**"Succinctly put."**

**"And what about you? Where will you be?"**

**Joshua cocked his head to the side and chuckled. "I'll be where you fall. I can't tell you anymore, it would corrupt the possibilities of how we meet."**

**Dani shook her head. "Time travel sucks."**

**"Yes, it does," Joshua sighed. "It's taken more than you'll ever know to even get me this far."**

**"I had a friend who could cross through time. Magik. Illyana. She was much better at this than anyone. But she's dead."**

**Joshua's eyes flared with energy and the flames rose up behind him. "Behold."**

**Dani gasped, she'd heard about it so often, read the files but to see it in person, even in a grand illusion was awe inspiring. She laughed at her own backtracking to the word.**

**Dirt in her mouth made her move; she'd been lying on the ground, asleep. He'd come to her in her dreams. Her rabbit cooked and the fire dying out. Her fingers felt like they'd been burnt but when she looked at them she saw no damage. It was under the skin. She raised her hands skyward and quantum energy exploded from them. It was back. Somehow she was tapping into it again and through that she could almost...feel? Gateway on the other end. Like cutting those blasted chains this was another one of those mental tests of control. She sat down and slowed her breathing. Her quantum energy was a like a rope that she had to tag to her dimension's Gateway. She could do that. Of course she could. No problem.**

**Ok.............how did she do that?**

**Lunar orbit:**

**"I said fire again!" Ari shouted through thick smoke, a large bloody gash on her forehead. She threw off a large part of her chair that had broken off and half trapped her and turned back to Karma and Hunter who were manning the engines and weapons consoles.**

**"The Acanti are firing back again!" Karma shouted. "The shields are all but non-existent; we can't keep up this punishment. I've sealed off several parts of the ship to decompression already. We're maintaining secure areas but they have a far more unlimited capacity to attack. We're built for speed, for evasiveness and we're not using it."**

**Ari looked out the viewer screen and saw the two horribly Brood mutilated Acanti turning back at high speed for yet another pass of attacks. As frightening as the battle was on one level, never seeing her family again, dying in a foreign star system, she felt truly alive. As if she was finally fighting a good fight, using her own wits and her ship to rid the universe of the scourge of the galaxy that had raped her home worlds.**

**"How are the scans going, Hunter? Do we have any idea which of the two Acanti are holding San Madre within them?" she called out. As soon as they dropped out of hyperspace, with less than five miles of the two Acanti star beasts, they'd been focused on which one was carrying what and whom. The Brood Queen had made an excellent gambit of having both Acanti race towards Earth, neither one showing the slightest favor in cargo or intent. One was to deliver the payload of Brood to infect the Earth and the other to turn and attack for the mutant children on the Avery. Both sides were both prey and hunter. It was a mesmerizing game, Ari couldn't help but excitedly observe.**

**"No, captain. I've even tried weight analysis. I expect that we caught up with them because they stopped and gathered asteroid debris to match the weight of San Madre. I can't even differentiate by bulk weight, which carries what."**

**"We'll only know by which one goes for the Avery?" Karma said in horror.**

**"Exactly. Both sides forced to show their hand at the same time. Once one of the Acanti goes for the Avery we won't be able to defend it as the other will make the run for Earth," Ari sighed. "A Brood Queen in both title and tactical ability."**

**Kitty's voice squawked over the ship wide comm link. "We're ready whenever you are, Ari. I calculate we'll be within orbit of the Moon in less than five minutes at this speed."**

**"Hunter? Are we ready?"**

**"As we'll ever be, captain," he said gravely, he was visibly ashen, his body wracked with spasms of pain from the Revitalizer treatments. There hadn't been time to let him recover before he was needed on the Bridge.**

**"Make it so!" Ari ordered and the ship suddenly lurched forward, full on into the attacking Acanti and then the frontal engines blasted suddenly as the rear propulsion came to an abrupt stop. The result was a rolling of the ship, front over end, and the hangar bays at the underbelly rear of the battleship.**

**The Acanti dodged out of the way, so as not to be struck by the immense ship and like water droplets flung from a hand, not one but two Avery ships snapped out of the hangar bays of the battleship.**

**Ari grinned though the g-force had her pinned to her command chair as she slapped her hand onto her control panel and dozens of plasma beams and missiles sailed at both Acanti. The Brood probably hoped that at some point they would've decided to not attack each as viciously in hopes of not harming the hostages. But the revised plan that she and the X-Men had created after Raphael, Holy Mother's walking surveillance of them, hadn't accounted for such audacity.**

**Or trickery.**

**Both Acanti took heavy damage from the surprise assault as they hesitated and both Avery ships rocketed first towards the Moon in tandem and then in sync, split. One towards the eastern hemisphere and the second the western. Ari could almost hear the Brood Queen raging at the maneuver, one of the Avery's obviously a decoy, the Brood suddenly put into the position that they had put the X-Men into, which one contained the children, the cargo the Brood wanted?**

**Ari saw on her viewer screen that the Acanti had paused and then come about and were rocketing towards each Avery ship, her ship's systems flashing red on nearly all levels. Engines. Weapons. Life support. Structural integrity. Her ship had been pushed too far for too long without proper repairs, all that she had left was to ram an enemy or activate the self destruct. **

**"They're both being followed now; we have to repair the engines before we make pursuit. Which will take about twelve hours," Hunter sighed.**

**"Then the rest of this gambit belongs to the X-Men and not to us. Let's get working on repairs so that we're ready for whatever the outcome may hold," Ari smiled grimly, watching the four blips on her viewer screen fade. She couldn't help but say a prayer for her captor's victory. She grinned, only a few days ago they'd been her captors and yet they'd risked their lives for her Empire and made her, now an outcast like Hunter, an ally.**

**Lunar orbit:**

**Shadowcat bit down onto her lip within her spacesuit, the primitive shuttle that Peter had formed an exact replica of his Avery ship around was built for short jaunts, not the stripped down speed race they'd revised it for. Everything but engines and the supports that kept it attached to the false Avery hull had been gutted to stuff extra shuttle engines in. They couldn't maintain the same speed the Avery could for an extended period of time but they only needed a sort time. The shielding built into the back of the ship and their space suits was to provide enough shielding to protect them but it couldn't last for long. And according to the scans behind them they were now coming around their side of the Moon with an Acanti in hot pursuit.**

**"We have the corresponding signal from Peter's ship, he's still in sync with us and being pursued by the Acanti," Paulie reported from inside of a space suit, an excited smile on his face. The whole plan had been his idea. Northstar, Iceman, Deathbird and Frenzy crouched expectantly behind him. A huge lead wall between them and the cockpit of the shuttle from the small radiation leak they'd created to disrupt the scanning mechanism of the Acanti so that there would be no way to distinguish the amount of life signs on either Avery.**

**Shadowcat said a silent prayer, Peter was the sole X-Man on his ship because of the necessity of the rest of their plan. Her fingers danced across the console, the metallic tips easily punching in the navigational changes to the Blue Area of the Moon with it's thin but habitable atmosphere. Would the Brood see the alterations she was gradually making in her course and reveal their hand?**

**There was a tense two minutes as she piloted the Avery in toward the Moon and Peter suddenly whipped back and began attacking his pursuer with missiles and plasma bolts. It was evident then which ship the three hundred children must be aboard and the Acanti behind Peter rose above his attacks and rocketed towards Earth while the one behind the X-Men began speeding up but not firing, believing the children on Shadowcat's ship.**

**"Ok, people, this is where it gets really ugly," Shadowcat said as she aimed the false, empty Avery towards a crater range several miles outside of the Blue Area of the Moon.**

**"The fools are still behind us," Deathbird cackled excitedly as she, Paulie and Frenzy began slowly pushing the lead wall off of the back of the shuttle, forcing the radiation containers into space. Iceman stood at the center of the lead wall focusing a thin sheen of ice at the crevices around the lead before it was to be forced from the back of the small Avery casing. Iceman focused on what was necessary what had to be done faster than he'd ever done before and once the back of the false Avery was sent flying off a thick ice tube appeared in the empty space, the decompression timed so fast that there was only a small rocking of the ship. **

**"Paulie!!!!!" Iceman shouted, his hands merged deeply into the ice barrier that had replaced the lead shield and the back end of the ship, the boosted engines around the gaping hole still blasting at full to keep the ship out of range of the Acanti. Paulie stood behind Iceman and slowly let his gauntlet energy seep out around Iceman's shield and then closing his eyes, he let his mind relax as Iceman had shown him. How to think of forming things out of energy or matter at his manipulation. Northstar took up a stance behind Paulie, his energy field focused forward so that Northstar could have a grip on him.**

**"Kitty!" We're as close as we're going to get!" Iceman yelled back over his shoulder more and more of his body becoming absorbed into his ice shield.**

**Nemesis checked her suit's wrist scanners. "We only have about two more minutes of protection from the suits from the radiation we leaked. We have to go now or never!"**

**"Understood," Shadowcat said and phased out of her control seat rather than waste time unbuckling herself. She turned around and checked the thick cabling that all the X-Men had attached around their waists and gave a confirming nod to Nemesis.**

**Nemesis crouched to her knees," NOW!" screaming from her lips as she sprung forward, through Paulie and Northstar who Shadowcat had turned intangible with a grasp of Northstar's leg. Nemesis pointed her sword directly forward, speeding toward Iceman's back which suddenly spiraled open allowing her to go forward through his body as she forced his body into the ice shield as a column from the back of the ship towards the Acanti, Nemesis's sword the tip of the ice spear. As soon as her feet were into the shield, Paulie flew forward and pushed her feet, Northstar increasing his speed from nothing to full speed at the same moment, Frenzy, Shadowcat and Deathbird attached to both men's waist but the cabling. **

**In less than five seconds the ice spear not only rocketed towards but grew towards and at the Acanti body, Nemesis' sword cutting through it's heavy body at the point that the intense ice stream made contact and Iceman, his consciousness throughout the ice, immediately froze the hull to brittle material. The X-men smashed through the hull, Iceman not reforming his body but instead erupting out like a disease along the Acanti hull/skin. The stress of the gravity of the Moon on the Acanti flying towards its surface began to shear the Acanti to pieces. Shadowcat didn't even think about what was going on around her, her part in the plan crucial as she made everything she was touching intangible---herself, the cable, Northstar in front of her and those behind he was in contact with as both he and Paulie kept focusing their propulsion abilities forward and up, Iceman whirling like a drill around all of their bodies until they'd punctured one part of the Acanti, long enough to begin the freezing and do impact damage and then phase through the top at an incredible speed that let them continue upwards.**

**Slowly an ice bubble formed around the group and within, Iceman reformed into his ice form, dropping to his knees in exhaustion as the others hurried to put a space suit on him before he changed back to human. His human form no longer seeming to be his natural form but his regenerative form from ice or moisture. With a gasp as the helmet and gloves sealed around him, he reverted to flesh and blood and collapsed against Frenzy who was immediately checking his life signs. **

**"He's ok. Half dead but ok," Frenzy announced.**

**"I can't believe we actually did it!" Paulie said in shock. "That was friggin awesome!"**

**Shadowcat kneeled on the ice, her arms on fire, the first time she'd ever felt such a feedback from phasing so many people at such a speed. And they were still moving upwards, upwards, upwards........towards.**

**There was a loud crashing sound around the bubble and Deathbird stood up, releasing her javelins from her wrists and blasting open the ice bubble. Either redemption or cold space lying on the other end.**

**"Hiya!" Peter grinned at the X-Men, the ice bubble having landed like a ball into a mitt of the true Avery's hangar bay.**

**"The Acanti?" Shadowcat gasped, taking in deep breaths, having held her breath for the entire period since they'd left the false Avery, her helmet retracting.**

**"The one heading towards the Moon. Disintegrated. And the one heading towards Earth, we're in hot pursuit of," Peter said, his eyes both metallic and glimmering with what looked like green and red computer flashes, his integration to the Avery, what had become his ship, almost symbiotic. He could pilot it without even being on the Bridge anymore. It had been only an hour's work for him to create a hull around the Shi'ar shuttle to fool the Brood. Shadowcat was beyond impressed with his powers. They were such a combination of metal **

**manipulation and integration that she was beyond an explanation for what, besides a lack of material, was his limit.**

**The X-Men hurried to the Bridge, past the empty cargo hold that had originally been packed with the San Madre children as the ship sped behind the Acanti towards Earth's orbit.**

**"Kitty!" Karma shouted in absolute joy from the comm link and video link with the Avery. "Everyone else?"**

**"Alive and well," Kitty smiled wearily at the image. "How are you guys?"**

**Karma smiled broadly, giving thumbs up, "We're still hidden behind the Moon, repairing the engines which will have us limping home in a few hours. And the children are all snug and safely asleep in the hangar bay."**

**Paulie high-fived Northstar. "Motherfuckers never realized we shifted the kids to the one place they never thought we would."**

**"We still have to stop that Acanti," Frenzy said pointedly at the ship ahead of them.**

**"Scans confirm that your human island is in the mouth. The beast is all but dead. I suggest we open fire; it looks like they intend to simply spit it at your planet. Disgusting but effective," Deathbird said from a scanner console. "Even if it crashes, some of the Brood will surely survive and ravage your world."**

**"Peter open fire on the Acanti, I want it destroyed and burning up in the atmosphere, no exceptions!" Shadowcat barked.**

**Sanctuary Base,**

**Australia:**

**"I say we eliminate a problem and kill him," Carlos said bluntly. "We don't have time to debate this."**

**"I concur," Emma said flatly.**

**The assembled group of mutants stood calmly around Sabine who had submitted to returning to Sanctuary with them.**

**Sabine grinned. "In our last confrontation you couldn't defeat me. However I would also point out that I am not the Sabine you fought before."**

**"Another clone?" Magma sighed. "Like the Marauders?"**

**"Yes, it was Meridian's way of maintaining control over us all. We were all equally expendable."**

**"How do we know he's telling the truth?" Jessica Drew asked bluntly.**

**"Simple," Emma grinned and savagely ripped her way through Sabine's mind without hesitation. The telepathic probe was so intense and fast that there was no chance for any form of defense and she saw deeply into the mutant metamorphs mind. "This Sabine, male in appearance and female in possibility, is telling the truth. This is a clone of the original Sabine and not the one the X-Men fought. So is the slaughter still on?"**

**There was a grim silence and then Carlos shook his head. "No. We have to get ready for the Brood. Talisman?" he called over his comm link. "Where are we at situation wise?" **

**"I have mystically locked back onto San Madre. The Acanti is between here and the Moon. Moving fast. As soon as they hit the atmosphere, I can draw it towards here. That's all I'll be able to do though. I'll be effectively out of the fight just dragging it to Sanctuary against a living starship. Be ready. Destroy the Brood because I can't guarantee it'll be an easy landing. In fact I can promise that bringing San Madre down on the outskirts of the town, whether it's in the Acanti or not will be spectacular. Tell the Australian government we're landing a meteor," she snickered.**

**"You've got to be kidding!" Monet said in shock. She'd been reviewing the mission logs and the schematics on the viewer screens. "The calculations alone without the threat of the Brood on board are astronomical."**

**"We've been improvising for some weeks now," Amara sighed. "Why stop now? If I'm not needed in here, I think I'll go shift the earth to receive whatever the hell we're expecting."**

**Emma watched the Red Queen leave, for a moment lost in the thought of how many of the Hellfire members were integrated into the X-Men these days. "Jessica, Marrow and M are at your disposal Carlos and I'm sure Cain and I can stay here away from the other teams for a brief time. Should I call in the other X-Men? Other teams? New Mutants? Power Pack?"**

**Carlos shook his head. "There's no time. Alex, you will have to deal with the Australian government on explaining this to them."**

**Alex nodded. "That is what I'm here for. And trust me they've projected a hundred scenarios onto what having the X-Men here could entail. We won't get a problem for them. IT and I will be in the Communications room chatting up Australian armed forces to get medical help out here. Handling several thousand people will overtax our resources if they aren't brought in."**

**"Agreed but, Alex, tell them to keep a proper distance by ten miles before approaching. If this goes wrong, they're nothing but grist for the Brood Queen's mill," Emma reminded.**

**"I will," he said then hurried out.**

**"Do we get paid overtime for this, Frosty?" Marrow asked sarcastically to Emma. "We were hired on, least I was, to work for you on the projects we discussed. Not this global threat X-Men bullshit. I left them because of this crap."**

**Emma observed Sarah calmly, once the young woman had even held her captive. The seething rage that had radiated from her mind years ago had dulled but it was still on the edge, the tip of her psyche. She was literally, genetically by virtue of her mutant abilities an action junkie, a berserker, in league with Wolverine and Sabretooth when she reached prime one day. And she detested large groups. Charles had never looked deeply through her psyche to see that. He often pulled together X-Men, mutants into the fold without subjecting them to the mental checking Emma did. While it gave her a deeper understanding, it also gave her excellent ways to manipulate people.**

**"These people, first the children and then their parents and townspeople are the next generation of Morlocks, Sarah. Whatever happens here today either hundreds of children will need us or thousands of people. They can never return to their old lives, to South America. They will need deep rehabilitation as well as the mutant children will need our guidance. Are you ready to lead another group of Morlocks?" Emma challenged.**

**Sarah's eyes closed with grim memories then opened back up with a dark gleam. Her flesh first bulged then began to tear without blood spurting forth, bone protrusions covering her forehead, her forearms, spikes from her fingertips and kneecaps. "Understood, Frosty. Understood."**

**Xavier Institute,**

**Westchester, New York:**

**Charles Xavier calmly walked into his private office, his mind a million miles away. Well, actually not a million. He was conducting a meeting with the X Corp heads in New York, Miami and Chicago telepathically. The observing and maintaining of his telepathic presence bolstered by several receiver telepaths he'd had placed in each office as telepathic "servers". Very little of his own considerable power being expended. He could calmly teach a class on ethics as he had ten minutes ago to Institute students and then come back to his office to complete some work. He'd learned long ago to mentally multi-task through meditation and by essentially preparing mental scripts of what his mind or body would do and say, with very little constant direction from him. He could literally be and act in two places at once, no one much the wiser for the distraction. Much like doing one thing and thinking about another.**

**He hesitated halfway into his office.**

**Something was wrong. **

**The telepathic conference call, he slowly muted, pulling more of his telepathic reserves to search around him, to prepare a defense if needed but it was too late. He smelled the anesthetic even as his legs buckled from under him. The fright of not being able to walk again startled him long enough so that he didn't take the next immediate action to call for help. That was his error. He realized that as soon as he felt the mental assault. **

**Timed perfectly. **

**Someone who knew when he'd be mentally distracted and that a full telepathic attack wouldn't work because he would defend against it but poisoning his office and purposefully startling him with one of his deepest fears; he was vulnerable for a fraction of a second. Isolated in his own mind away from the telepathic touch of others and that was when e felt what could only be termed a mental monsoon.**

**Channel, in Xavier's theorizing and extensive investigation wasn't a totally mental creature like Malice, he was partially biological in nature. He'd once had a body. His connection through his brother Camus was like a genetic marker in the world. Xavier realized his error in bringing Camus here, Channel's brother acted as a lens focusing Channel's power at a target. They'd refined it to being able to use projectiles but that was unnecessary. Charles could feel Camus several levels below in the internment suite he was imprisoned in, all three men locked into Channel's power. Then he sensed someone else in the room, unconscious in a deep slumber. **

**Roberto DaCosta? **

**Yes, he would've been an excellent vehicle for Channel to get into the mansion and to know Charles' meeting schedule at the same time, as DaCosta was the head of the Los Angeles X Corp.**

**Charles tried to rally his defenses to fight off Channel to scream out, to call for help but the being was simply Roberto one moment and a spear into Xavier's mind the next. He was already standing in Charles' body, walking over to the desk and sitting down.**

**_Relax, Charles. Do not fight._**

**_Channel, you hold me. Barely. I know my mind and body better than any other human on this planet does. I will systematically shutdown my bodies functions until you're forced to leave or we die together._**

**_Yes, Charles, as I am in your mind I know about the mental subconscious fail safes you've implanted into yourself so that you can never be co-opted again as your dear sister Cassandra did. These wonderful hypnotic suggestions are already making my extremities tingle as blood circulation slows. This body will be beyond physical use in what--------three minutes? Plenty of time for my goal and to eliminate you at the same time. You see, I also know that it will take you awhile to recover once you've knocked out this body._**

**Charles was emotionally taken aback._ You---you don't want my body, my abilities?_**

**Channel chuckled derisively. _ Please. When possessed they defeat you the fastest Charles. You'd be almost as foolish to take over as say, Magneto! Both of you, defeated more often than ever winning when used. You're a teacher, mayhap even a strategist but your precious students have kicked your ass so many times over the years that I'd be insulted to use you. And your sister is--------well, not interesting enough for my uses. I'm interested in a long ago buried file. Another mutant. One you couldn't recruit nor tame nor save. That is the body for me. Channel had called up Xavier's mutant file list, his fingers dancing over the keys, telepathy sparking through the mentally password protected files, snatching tidbits of Charles's memories and knowledge to move so fast through the Shi'ar computer that the question was answered even before Channel voiced it. One word. _**

**_Who? _Charles dumbly asked, his own consciousness slowly drifting away as his mind retreated into the subconscious trap he'd created within himself to prevent co-opting. His brain itself was shutting down from lack of blood.**

**_Quantum, _Channel whispered as he found Charles' file, the mutant's location and left Xavier's mind and body, all in one scant second.**

**_NO!_ Charles screamed in realization then all went black.**

__

**Sanctuary Base,**

**Australia:**

**It was close to midnight as the Acanti came streaking towards the continent. They'd observed it first from the Situations Room for hours then come outside to prepare themselves. The Avery was in close pursuit of the Acanti---holding back not, almost acting as an escort as the Australian military jets joined in at a several mile distance, awaiting the signal to engage.**

**Carlos and Shadowcat had been in constant contact for the last hour.**

**"It's slowing as if coming in for a voluntary landing," Carlos said in disbelief.**

**"I see it. No weapons ready to fire and I'm clocking them as forty thousand feet above sea level, coming in at almost a thousand feet a minute. They could be going faster. The Brood Queen is up to something."**

**"I concur. Let's just blow it out of the sky and be done," Carlos muttered in frustration.**

**"I'm thinking this would be a mistake," Shadowcat sighed.**

**Gateway shuffled over to Carlos and tapped his shoulder from almost two feet below eye level.**

**"Wha----? Yes?"**

**"Boom," Gateway said and pointed at the flickering lights heading towards them. There was a huge flash and the Acanti exploded.**

**Emma actually gasped out loud. "She self destructed the ship!"**

**"Not exactly!" Shadowcat shouted over the comm link. "San Madre is still plummeting towards you but there are thousands of Brood falling towards the continent. Dear God! We won't be able to destroy them all!"**

**"I'll try to help...........in some way!" M said as she rocketed into the sky.**

**"Everyone will help," Gateway nodded and took out his bola. He stepped back and began swinging it into a wider arc above his head. **

**Emma dropped to her knees, her thoughts flooded, with thoughts. She could feel Gateway's thoughts pressing against her mind as she felt others, all around her, their thoughts, joining into the energy swirl that the bola was expanding further and further out from. She sensed hundred, thousands, tens of thousands of minds all around the continent suddenly becoming alert to Gateway to his intention. Above she could feel tens of thousands of Brood diving towards the continent and behind that the isle of San Madre, sailing confidently under the Brood Queen's control like a throne slowly waiting for the shock troopers to infest the land first.**

**A keen sang out from Gateway, a keen shared by thousands of Aborigines around the continent of Australia and suddenly Emma felt a shift in first her perceptions and then the land itself. **

**Monet gave a wide berth to the plummeting Brood forces heading towards Australia and instead kept her focus on the isle of San Madre, perhaps she could do something about that. Fighting airborne Brood would be useless. **

**"Is there ANYONE from the X-Men out there?!" she heard a shout over her comm link as she came towards the island that was descending slowly, under some sort of propulsion from energy engine nacelles under it.**

**"Warren? Archangel?" Monet gasped in shock into her comm link.**

**"Yes! Yes, this is Archangel, who is this?" he said excitedly.**

**"This is M. Monet St. Croix. Ummm, we just killed you a few hours ago," she said hesitantly as she spoke into her comm link and at the same time reached out with her telepathy to the island. Sure enough, she could telepathically sense him and started flying in closer. Holy Mother and the Brood Queen seemed to be distracted, intent on their first wave attack and landing.**

**It took her only a few minutes to land on the island, the jungle thick and come upon Warren who was sitting in a clearing, holding a plasma rifle, obviously having been in a heavy fight with the Brood.**

**"I saw you blown to hell," Monet said cautiously.**

**"I got teleported to the island. I think it was Meridian's doing. Her way of giving me what I wanted most, which was to be back in the thick of this all," Warren said tiredly. "I fought them hard and planted several jury rigged bombs on the island to destroy the flight nacelles. They believe I was killed with the exploding Acanti. The others? The X-Men in space? My team?"**

**Monet did a light telepathic scan of him, it was Archangel, his mind no longer co-opted though she felt his deep psionic connection to the Black Bishop and Danielle Moonstar. She could also see that Meridian had done something to his memories of her, some sort of clouding so that Monet suspected a far more experienced telepath would have to indepthly scan him to unearth what had happened in her presence. She felt a sense of both revulsion and confusion from him about it.**

**"Ok, I know that Meridian yanking my mental chain doesn't make me the best leader of the X-Men but we have a priority situation that is threatening Earth. You can stop giving me the fish look and let's get to work." He stood up and pointed at a tunnel. "That leads down to where the Stargate and nacelle technology is. I started a virus of sorts to detonate the island but I was looking for a way to get off of here before I blew it up."**

**"Shadowcat and the others devised a plan to bring it in for a landing. And now you have your way off. Hold on," Monet grinned proudly, grabbed him and flew off of the island at her top speed back towards the Sanctuary base.**

**"What happened to your wings?" Monet asked.**

**"Gone. Monet?"**

**"Yes? What happened to Australia?" Warren asked and Monet looked down and saw that the continent was gone, only immense ocean below them.**

**Shadowcat gaped in shock at what she was seeing from the Avery's front windows.**

**"Peter, your scans....?"**

**"It's gone, Kitty. Australia and the thousands of Brood that were within ten thousand feet of it," Deathbird reported. "It was near instantaneous. A teleporter of some sort?"**

**"Gateway?" Iceman suggested, equally shocked.**

**Paulie shook his head," I've read everyone's files. That's way beyond his scope."**

**"Not any longer", Northstar suggested.**

**"But they took the whole continent too. Along with the Brood. Why?" Peter said desperately working on piloting the ship closer to the flying island of San Madre.**

**"Scanning still shows the exact number of residents of the island plus the Brood Queen. This is prime opportunity to kill her and all aboard," Deathbird suggested.**

**"Disgustingly enough, she's right, Kitty," Iceman said grimly. "Somehow Gateway has saved Australia by snatching it away with the tens of thousands of Brood that were in it's air space but there are still thousands of threats flying towards it when and if it returns. We can't give up this chance to end this all."**

**Peter flipped open a small console. "I can fire on it from here."**

**There was a deep silence in the cabin until there was a squawking voice that interrupted them all. "Belay that, X-Men. I have another option."**

**"Warren?" Iceman said in shocked joy to the comm link.**

**"I'm alive. And I'm sorry for leaving you all, it was Meridian's influence. I'm about ten thousand feet below you in Monet's capable arms and she says she's picking up telepathic resonances that Australia is returning. Give it a moment."**

**All eyes fixed on the water space below in anticipation.**

**She felt like her arms were being ripped out of their sockets, like her skin was being flayed off but she held her focus, she maintained her spell through sheer force of will now. Gateway had enacted the first part of their plan that they'd decided in secret. She'd cast the spell to help link him to the mystical energy of his people that was so much more easily tapped in Dreamtime. She was the lens for the mystical bubble, which created the separation. Long enough in the Otherplace for the Brood to come close to the landing and then, with a yanking of all the energy surging through her, Talisman signaled to bring back the continent of Australia and it slowly phased back into the Earth reality. Leaving thousands of Brood soldiers in-between realities. **

**Talisman lowered herself barely a foot back to the ground but collapsed to her knees, so much done and so much still necessary. Her hands rose as she felt her wards extending to the connection she'd made to San Madre. They'd made technological changes to the island to fly it and now she had to contend with that but she sensed Warren's existence and sensed his intent. With a snapping of her hand she threw a thought at him, compelling him to act and he activated the bombs he'd laid, the nacelles flashing and then the island halted in mid air and then began to plummet.**

**"It's all yours," Talisman shrieked into her comm link as she collapsed to the ground unconscious.**

**Magma rose up from the Sanctuary base on a column of earth, her body flaring with energy, her eyes on the island of San Madre that was coming towards her, like a rock sailing towards them**

**"Iceman, are we ready to do this?" she asked over her comm link.**

**"The Avery is closing in and Northstar is now taxiing me there," Iceman answered.**

**"This is Northstar. Iceman is encompassing the island now and extending the ice ramp."**

**Magma could see that as she raised her arms and brought up thousands of tons of earth in the form of a landing strip. She knew that she couldn't support the whole island's weight but if she could direct it, slow it down the others could do their part.**

**Paulie streaked out of the Avery's hangar bay and focused his gauntlet's power onto the block of ice that was now San Madre to create a drag on it. Iceman was even forming the ice into wings on the sides of the island, into tailfins to take advantage of updrafts, anything to slow the descent. The Avery lashed out with a tractor beam to lessen the load as well.**

**"It's working," Shadowcat said as she checked the Avery's sensors, the island was slowing down and being eased to the ground on Magma's landing strip. It crashed into the valley less than a quarter of a mile from the Sanctuary base. There was stillness to the air as the Avery landed in the Sanctuary town center, the thunderous sliding came to a grinding halt and all was silent. Billowing clouds of dust and dirt as high as skyscrapers sweeping through the town.**

**Paulie came streaking out of the sky and fired a energy blast at the island, shattering the ice encasement. And the Brood Queen slid from the island, clutching a bloody robe. "She was as tasty a snack as I have had in a long time," she hissed.**

**The X-Men ran to the edge of the island, standing ready to fight and the Brood Queen cackled insanely. "You've obliterated my landing troops and now you'll kill me? No, humansssssss, I've ruled an Empire too long to be taken so easily. You can have your precious nascent Brood humansssssss back, cure them, coddle them but know that I have infected you in spirit," she laughed at the terrorized Raphael who stood amongst them. "I crossed the stars in the mouth of a dead beast on a rock to bring infection and deaths to you by letting my sire know the path to fresh new meat. We will come for you, humansssssss, we will---!"**

**The Brood Queen's head, nearly five feet large, suddenly flew cleanly off and landed at the feet of the assembled X-Men, her body collapsing as Nemesis floated from behind, the body, wiping the blood and bile from her sword on her cape.**

**"For the love of God, shut up," Nemesis said and there was a long silence from the X-Men and then a relieved cheer went up from the X-Men.**

**Three days later:**

**Emma tied back up her sundress and stood up from the meditation she'd been doing in the nude. The harshness of the land around her made her feel so much more in touch with her telepathy. She was on a butte that looked down on the Sanctuary base/town and the now annexed San Madre town. There was no way to return it to South America. Well, not _any_ way but the South American authorities and political forces had strenuously expressed to the X Corporation that they didn't want it or the residents back in any shape, form or fashion. In lieu of tossing the island out to sea to see if it would float, it was now Sanctuary's property as it was on the land owned wholly by the X Corporation division of Australia. Dr. Reyes had worked almost the entire three days straight using the Revitalizer on each resident, the process taking only a minute to expose each person to. The hibernative state they'd been kept in had slowed the infection down to such a minimum even as their bodies transformed that there was still enough human DNA left in each to change them back.**

**The fact that there were now close to six thousand more people occupying the Sanctuary base had given Alex Rosten a lot more to do. San Madre had to be electronically integrated to Sanctuary's power systems as well as some form of commerce and food brought in. Emma felt that she had handled the problem well, charging close to five million dollars in expenses to her X Corp American Express card as supplies were brought in. She actually liked the challenges that the Sanctuary team had brought to her and the X-Men as a whole. There were three hundred children/adolescents from the town who had been bred to be mutants, who were now tentatively both awake and blossoming in the use of their abilities. In many ways San Madre residents needed to stay both guarded and trainable by the X-Men, the sheer resources that they were was incalculable. The Australian government was eagerly shipping in tractor trailers full of food and clothing. It didn't escape Emma's notice that they were slowly becoming the one continent that possessed an abundance of mutants.**

**Sanctuary was fast becoming the new Genosha with there being rumors that other disenfranchised mutants were on their way. That could make a full mutant city again. Emma had deep concerns about that. Congregating was dangerous; she'd lived through what happened when someone attacked the city. Emma felt like she was witnessing the building of Israel, she would be just a fanatically diligent to making sure it was never seen as a viable victim.**

**They were fortunate though; they had over a dozen viable X-Men at the base, which could be used in many ways. **

**Warren looked at his quarters, he hadn't even had a chance to unpack, they'd spent so much time running to and fro. First France, then Japan, then here then deep space. No time at all to relax, to acclimate himself to what was going on around him, what this all meant to truly be a leader. Everyone was still resting; recovering from everything that had happened but in a day or two he would have to organize the team again. One, to protect this town and two, to fulfill their mission of international action force. It would've been a lot easier if Danielle were here to bandy around plans with.**

**"We'll find her," Carlos said from the doorway. Warren jumped in spite of himself.**

**"I thought our psi rapport was supposed to let me know where you were every moment?" Warren snapped.**

**"With so many people and emotions around, I'm forced to close myself inward empathically; it has the effect of dulling my presence. In time, a non-psi like you will understand what you're connected to."**

**"And exactly what am I connected to, Carlos? We all know that you've got some sort of demon trapped in you mystically. What does that mean for me? For Danielle? I'm starting to wonder if you're more danger than help."**

**Carlos entered the room calmly, impeccable in black silk slacks and shirt, not a hair out of place, the heat seemingly having no effect upon him. He calmly sat down on the couch and observed Warren with such cool detachment, it was almost ominous. "That which resides within me, which I am the gatekeeper of, is not something, I, or any other sane man would choose to harbor."**

**"Says the Black Bishop of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club."**

**"Touché. But if I remember the roster, you and Lady Amara are members as well. That is not a stigma for membership to the X-Men is it? Your numbers would be cut significantly if past associations predicated current membership. Northstar was a member of a terrorist group in Canada, Paulie, the American underworld, shall I go on?"**

**"No, point taken. But I need to know what your commitment is to the X-Men. Is it just for Magma, as her bodyguard? Is it for Dani and I? Or for your Black King's purposes?"**

**"I serve the Inner Circle but I am not here under some nefarious mission. My commitment to Amara, you and Danielle are the ties that bind me here for now. That's all I can promise you. I am unsure as to my thoughts on Xavier's mutant Eden."**

**"We all have our doubts. It's a tough road to hoe. We can use your allegiance to us. The others spoke well of your loyalty to the team when you could've killed yourself and been out of the fight entirely."**

**"Because I possess serial immortality does not mean that I seek death at the drop of a hat. I'm as committed to living as you all are. I would awaken confused and it would take years for my consciousness and maturity to be in line again. It's not an escape plan I prefer to take."**

**"Understood. You still have Marat's axe?"**

**"Yes."**

**"Talisman is still unconscious, resting from so much expenditure so I'm hoping that your magicks can help us find Kurt and Danielle."**

**"Give me a day or two to research the proper spells and I'll try."**

**"You have six hours," Warren said grimly.**

**While Cecelia was glad to have helped so many people, people whose health had consumed her waking thoughts for several weeks, she was exhausted. Emma telepathically flash teaching thousands of people to speak English who only spoke Spanish or Portuguese in no way changed the fact that they were still panicked at their experiences. The other X-Men had been doing full rotations of twelve hours a piece, six at a time to provide both care, counseling and security for a town literally hurled through the cosmos and then dropped into the middle of no where.**

**In a sense Cecelia had performed emergency triage on all five thousand of the people, trying to use the Revitalizer on them quickly before they woke up from Talisman's suspended animation spell. She felt darkly proud that she was on the forefront of genetic research and medical practicing but of course she was in the middle of the desert, so there was no one to really share this exciting leap with. **

**She lay down onto her full sized bed, having slept in it one night before, weeks ago, and exhausted both mentally and physically. So much had happened in such a short span of time and with Dani and Kurt still missing, the team's dubious Hellfire Club connections, and a host of other points like the Marauders, Sabine and Meridian to clear up, she knew that she'd be back on active duty soon. As either a doctor or an X-Man, both finally seeming to congeal into a weird synthesis. It would be nice to be free, to be able to get her head together and sort out what she'd been through, she thought to herself as she dozed off.**

**The corner of the sparsely furnished suite shimmered for a moment and then Joshua's image appeared. He strolled over to the bed and looked at the sleeping Cecelia. He shook his head both mutely and sadly.**

**Cecelia hadn't been killed yet, which meant he had crossed over into the right dimension but at the wrong time. His astral hand touched her forehead wistfully for a moment and then he closed his eyes and vanished.**

**"Finding anything interesting, Katherine?" Emma asked calmly as she strolled into the Situations Room and looked at the dozens of reports of mutant activity on the twenty foot high viewer screen.**

**"I was looking over the Australian governments forwarded on mutant activity issues they want us to look into. It's extensive but it's also very forthcoming," Kitty mumbled.**

**"Which bothers you?" Emma challenged.**

**"A whole continent so willingly inviting the X-Men in, supporting us, not to mention Gateway making the whole continent vanish and San Madre taking up permanent residence here. They seem too conciliatory."**

**"Oh they want things I'm sure. First off, us in their debt. Morally, financially, etc.. Secondly, you're taking a short view of mutants, Katherine. You see yourself, your lifetime, teams, and communities---I'd wager my life that the Australian government is looking into what will happen in say one hundred, two hundred years. Mutants are fast becoming a viable yet volatile resource on the planet."**

**Kitty swiveled around in her chair and stared long and hard at the White Queen. "And where does that put you?"**

**"You mean my intentions? We've had our differences in the past----," Emma started.**

**"You tried to kidnap me, coerce me into your school, you terrorized me, you brainwashed me," Kitty corrected.**

**Emma nodded her head in short agreement. "Imagine if I disliked you."**

**"What's your plan in all of this? I'm not even sure that I agree with the Professor not leaving you in one of those pesky catatonic comas you go into. The snippy, snotty rich bitch attitude is ample filled throughout the X-Men, we don't need a former enemy too."**

**"Glaring imitations of me, I like to think. Katherine, we're looking at the survival of two species, human and mutant. Thoughts like enemy of the past won't apply in the same ways. You're legal now, pick up the shattered pieces and move on. The real question is will you be staying or is it back to Chicago, the Student Union and sock hops with frat boys?"**

**"I don't sock hop. The reference alone dates you. I came here about Peter. The new Peter. Piotr's son," Kitty fumbled, it was still confusing for her sometime.**

**"Quite the resemblance, no? Almost uncanny and yet at the same time, he's leaner, has a bit of a Savage Land feral look to him. That naiveté though, I'm positive it's his way of suppressing an intensely carnal nature," Emma grinned. "Peter is a devilish mix of attractiveness and obliviousness that hasn't been in the X-Men since Longshot. The raw sexuality? My goodness."**

**"Oh, put it back into your pocket, Emma. You're not his type. He's likes them with a pulse. Also he's not married so there's no one for you to steal him from."**

**Emma chuckled. "Good one. But he's here now, he's safe as an X-Man in training can be, he's made his decision to stay. Will you continue to nursemaid him? Though I don't think you've filled out well, I think you might enjoy a bit of suckling from him. No?"**

**Kitty couldn't help but to blush crimson. "God, I hate you."**

**"Hate me? Get in line, take a number and have a seat in the bleachers. You're torn between the hint of a ghost in the man from his father and fact that he's an entirely different person than Piotr. Your natural attraction is being upset by your precious Jewish morals."**

**"Not Jewish. Human. Another thing alien to you. But was there a point to this mini-therapy session?"**

**"The team needs you. With Danielle and Nightcrawler.......temporarily gone, we need another seasoned, leadership capable individual on the team. You held your group together admirably in space and you're well respected for it. Warren needs that kind of back up. The loss of Chamber has addled several of the newer members who haven't seen as much death as you and I."**

**Kitty nodded. "How long do you need me for?"**

**Emma smiled. "I made some calls. Sydney University has an exchange program in quantum mechanics; you could do an internship, fulfilling your schoolwork while being here. You could think of this as an internship too of sorts. It pays better than the bar you've been working at."**

**"For a short period. To help sort this all out."**

**"You mean Peter?" Emma teased. "Kitty, I can't have you using your position as co-leader to take sexual advantage of Peter. That would be wrong. Horribly, terribly, absurdly wrong."**

**Kitty sneered. "The people of San Madre and this list of mutant activity. I'm here on a temporary basis and my schooling comes first."**

**"I will leave alone what and whom may or may not come first in your personal affairs but I do agree. You're at that age whether hopefully you're handling your goings....and comings. Might I recommend you get over your hesitancy to explore your interests in Peter? Not only are there others on the team who've noticed him but now San Madre is part of us. Northstar you might have a chance against, but some of those primitively attractive young women from the town? They do have the taint of the jungle he's probably used to. Ta, dear."**

**Kitty actually didn't remember hurling her coffee cup at the door as it closed behind Emma but when it missed she did grimace. She was a better shot than that.**

**Three days later:**

**They sat assembled around the Situations Room, Alex Rosten, Black Bishop, Captain Ari, Deathbird, Frenzy, Hunter, Iceman, Jessica Drew, Juggernaut, Karma, Monet, Magma, Marrow, Nemesis, Northstar, Paulie, Peter Rasputin, Jr., Raphael, Sabine, Shadowcat, Spike, and in a wheelchair, visibly drawn and exhausted, Talisman**

**Emma stood next to Warren at the head of the table. "We'll keep this short because we can't rely on IT and Gateway to watch after the San Madre residents. They're staying. A few hundred of them may leave but the majority of the five thousand residents and all of their three hundred mutant children are staying. Our town of Sanctuary will annex the land of their town and we'll rebuild it. They were poor industrial workers in South America and we'll upgrade them all and their skills to hopefully in a year being an extension of the X Corporation and a town dedicated to staffing Sanctuary city as a whole. Yes, overnight, we've become a mutant city. Small but Australia is giving us rights and so on. **

**"Ari, Hunter and Deathbird have asylum here. I suggest everyone who stays keep it fixed to kill Deathbird with my blessings if she gets out of line. The same goes for Raphael and Sabine. In the meantime, the three Shi'ar will act as part of the Sanctuary security/intelligence team under Alex's supervision and direction, with the interfacing of both towns, Shi'ar and Sanctuary tech, etc. etc.. **

**"Because of incidents like Genosha and the near constant attacks on Xavier's Westchester school, we're going to be a bit more diligent here. Ms. Drew will act as a Situations Manager here and de facto town administrator coordinating with Mr. Rosten, with Marrow in charge of perimeter security and defense. Her experiences and past couple of years of high level security and espionage training make her a natural at this and she'll also be creating a patrol and civil defense force within the town residents.**

**"Juggernaut will be returning to the states but on call if there's any problems, we're going to have him stay around for a few weeks here to maintain both civil order and send a message to anyone interested in us. His reputation of raw power should deter any casual attacks. I'll also be on hand setting up a training facility for the children, Holy Mother having bred these children for almost two decades to be born mutants. I'll be supervising all matters, of course. Think of me as a prettier Xavier as this whole operation was originally my concept and plan in spite of what he may've told you. With that the meeting is turned over to Warren and Katherine who will handle the X-Men action squads."**

**Warren spoke calmly as Emma sat down. "Elizabeth has strained herself through the use of her magicks so she's on disability for at least a month, Psyche, Nightcrawler and Chamber are all missing in action, with Chamber confirmed dead by Nemesis. Kurt was--------we think banished somehow by Marat and Dani kidnapped by him, that will be one squads focus, to retrieve both of them. The second squad lead by Kitty will go hunting for Channel. We got a report from Xavier that he escaped Hellfire Club custody and is on his way with his brother to recruit a powerful mutant in the body of Roberto DaCosta, Sunspot. We also have the third issue of Meridian to deal with. Or rather my son with her. If I was transported out, then we can assume she was as well. A small splinter group will be in charge of hunting her down and then my squad and or Kitty's will join you before engagement of her. Because of my connection to Meridian I obviously can't lead the direct charge on that squad but I trust that Karma, Sabine and the security team here will do a good job tracking her down. My squad is myself, Carlos, Magma, Nemesis, Frenzy and Raphael/Tran and Karma. Kitty?"**

**Kitty smiled brightly. "I'm staying on for awhile and taking classes at Sydney U. They start in a couple of weeks so that gives my squad time to go catch Channel. We're hoping that I, Paulie, Peter, Northstar, Iceman and Monet can deal with him by shifting up the game on him. M's telepathic powers giving us an edge against him will have both the past experience and resistance to take him down and turn him over to the IRC this time. It was an error to let Sebastian Shaw hold him. We'll also be coordinating with Spike who will be working on a way to contain him here."**

**"Any questions?" Emma asked.**

**There was nodding around the room, everyone having gotten their assignments on their data pads before the meeting had begun. All information out in the open and discussed.**

**"Then we should go outside for the ceremony for Chamber that the townspeople have prepared and then Kitty's squad is off to New York."**

**As everyone filed out of the large room, Kitty, Emma, Warren and Alex hung back.**

**"It's a good division of skill, labor and expertise," Alex said with a satisfied nod.**

**"Let's hope our squads aren't reunited across the galaxy again this time," Warren chuckled. **

**"They're all good people; they trust each other enough to get the job done. Any advice on Channel?" Kitty asked.**

**Warren, who had been possessed by the mutant said through gritted teeth. "If it comes to it. Destroy him. He's too dangerous to be allowed to go running around."**

**"I concur," Emma nodded. "He is after all a complex thought with an organic component, similar to the Shadow King but thank goodness not telepathic."**

**"Are you still going to be looking into Madripoor? Cleaning up that mess we left there?" Warren asked Emma. "I'm feeling hyper vigilant about this large group making a difference and not just huge craters behind us. Especially since I was a part of it."**

**"Meridian co-opted you. I'll coordinate with Karma and we'll handle it. Find Danielle and Kurt, we could use a full third squad. I'm concerned about security here until we're up and running fully," Alex said. "The Aussie's have offered military support around the perimeter and Ari and Hunter say they can have a full security net up in a few weeks but we're a bright target. I'd feel better with a team here. A full one."**

**"Agreed," Emma said. "This place is going to attract other mutants looking for sanctuary as well as enemies in a short time. We have to be prepared. We're like an undefended Israel. I'll look into what other resources I can bring here, perhaps a privately hired security force to supplement us. I think it would be best, especially with the Marauders so close by in Madripoor. We're vulnerable."**

**"Alex, Emma, coordinate that with Xavier, get some of his Mutant Underground people here, we need a bigger infrastructure to handle the influx of thousands of people, particularly hundreds of mutant children," Warren nodded. "I'll contact some people at Worthington Industries for technology and security teams say fifty trained former cops who want to make an obscene amount of money for a year and don't mind working with mutants."**

**"Or South American refugees who were telepathically taught English by Emma and now all have a slight British accent when they speak," Kitty snickered. Everyone looked at Emma.**

**"It's called telepathy not infallibility. I actually think it makes them seem more civilized," she defended then stalked off to the laughter of the others.**


	13. Bait

X-Men: Sanctuary 

Issue # 13

By Kyle Phoenix

"Bait"

**Manhattan, New York:**

**Kitty, Paulie, Peter, Northstar and Iceman and Monet**

**"These are some nice digs," Paulie commented as the team wearily entered the brownstone in the lower part of the city.**

**"One of Charles' mutant safe houses, he was paranoid at some point about attacks on the X-Men so he set up mini-bases throughout the world in case we ever had to go into hiding," Kitty explained.**

**"Do you think that will ever happen, Kitty? Mutants having to go into hiding?" Monet asked coolly, wrapped in a dark blue pashmina, huge sunglasses on, every inch the remote socialite.**

**"If we don't find some way to broker peace with normal humans, Channel is the kind of mutant that could destroy that all."**

**Jean Paul and Bobby came in followed by Peter carrying several foot lockers of equipment.**

**"How's the Avery?" Paulie asked Peter.**

**"Well hidden in the garage, that sewer entrance from the river was a great plan, no one even saw me drop you guys off and then enter it. Prof. X is pretty smart," Peter smiled, already opening up the footlockers and assembling the equipment for the satellite connection to the Sanctuary base.**

**Bobby grinned. "I think Xavier is trying to keep up with us these days, his students have come a long way from when I looked like Frosty the Snowman. And so have the threats. Back then, that whole Shi'ar fight would've wiped out the five original students."**

**Monet whipped open her pashmina dramatically and sat down on a small sofa, her eyes flashing. "I'm picking up the telepathic tracker in Camus, exactly as Xavier said I would."**

**"Where?" Kitty asked eagerly. Her team hadn't had as much time to rest as she'd hoped but after reading the files on Channel, she knew that they had to get into action sooner than faster after the murderer.**

**"It feels like Jersey. I'm trying not to push so that neither Camus nor Channel will sense me. Channel's psi capabilities are still unknown. He's heading towards the Newark Airport; Roberto has a private jet there, no?" Monet asked, a slight grimace on her face. Her strength, invulnerability, flight and super intelligence the abilities she used most often. Telepathy, especially such a specific use of it was extremely new to her. She caught a flash of concern from her teammates. She was an unknown quality to them, and so much depended on her. She wouldn't let them see that she was as unsure about her powers as they were of her. She'd worked with X Corp for over a year now, she was more than ready to be on the senior team as an X-Man. She'd earned her right to be here.**

**"Yes. While Roberto gives him power and access, it also makes it easier to track him. He must know that so we have to assume it's a trap. Xavier couldn't give us any information on why Channel broke into the mansion using Roberto. So we have to assume, he's baiting us."**

**"Why?" Jean Paul asked Kitty. "Channel has proven to have mercurial objectives at best. Perhaps he could not overcome such a powerful telepath? Or perhaps there was no use to Xavier? The X-Men have defeated him when possessed before, oui?"**

**"Xavier was too strong to take over. He lost Selene and I doubt she'll ever let herself be at his mercy again and frankly none of us was assured as to coming after him so he has no idea who will be after him. I've extrapolated that in lieu of his captors being drawn in as vessels, he's leading us to his vessel, something that he will need a strike force to overcome," Monet answered, her computer like intellect having analyzed the situation in a hundred ways over the past few days. "We are being lead into a trap. The question is, who could he be after as a host that he cannot overcome if he could overcome Xavier and Selene?"**

**The team was silent, Monet's observations were accurate but Channel was an unknown villain in his goals and Monet new in her perspective. Two unknowns trying to be validated by the other. **

**Kitty's fingers danced across the computer consoles as Monet leaned over her shoulder and made several additions to the tracker information.**

**"He's stationary but I don't want to push for an actual telepathic contact since we don't want him co-opting us. It looks like from his positioning that he's on Roberto's Gulfstream G4 airplane. Simply waiting," Monet observed.**

**"They haven't filed a flight plan yet. He's probably using it as a hotel, concerned about the Professor coming after him. He wants to be mobile too. Also you have to look at the amount of police and military surrounding the airport, he knows that we can't go in there without looking like terrorists," Northstar observed. "Channel seems to have only one mutant power but he uses his own guile to enhance it immeasurably."**

**Peter opened up a briefcase with six armbands in it. "I followed Xavier's schematics for reproducing these quickly. It seems that I can meld metal faster into technology when I have detailed plans and a telepath to translate it. These should protect us from Channel's possession power by create a psi static field around us. I also have one set aside to attach to Roberto to hopefully free him."**

**Bobby spoke up from a viewer screen he and Paulie were watching of local news. "Guys, I think we have a problem. A big problem. The President is landing at Newark Airport now. That's why there's additional security."**

**"You think Channel is going to make a play for the President?!" Monet gasped in shock.**

**"He's shown the balls to go after Lord Cardinals and Xavier, would you put it past him?" Paulie snickered.**

**"Ok, then that means we have to go in. That we have to take him out and fast. Peter, get the Avery prepped. Can the Shi'ar masking sensors keep us off the fighter jets circling the city now? If the President is here, the tri-state area will be lit up," Kitty shook her head. She didn't want to take such a new team into a potential deadly and sticky situation but Channel was pushing too many buttons. She had no choice. Of her team, Monet was the major unknown quantity but she had an excellent track record with Generation X and X Corporation, she should fit in smoothly, her strength and telepathy being great assets to this squad. Kitty had to admit that she felt proud of her ability to step in for Danielle and lead a squad so effortlessly.**

**"No problem, Kitty, the Avery's technology is close to a hundred years ahead of Earth's in the field of masking, we'll be invisible to even the naked eye once I activate the chameleon reflectors. The Shi'ar are very cautious about people seeing them, even if this is stolen from another dimensions Shi'ar. I chose it specifically because it was a spy ship."**

**"Good. Monet, Northstar, you two will go in low under the radar from opposing directions. Iceman, you get as close as you physically can to the hangar then do a moisture transport and I'll phase in from under him. Paulie and Peter will swoop in for retrieval and hopefully we'll be able to sandwich him before he's any the wiser," Kitty instructed. "In fact, it might be wise to see what other information Xavier may have on Channel that he learned from having Camus a prisoner. Hold on." **

**Kitty's fingers danced over the keyboard, accessing the Xavier Institute files and then going into the Xavier Protocols. With her hackers knowledge she was easily able to identify the timeframe of when Channel had attacked the Professor and locate the files Channel had accessed as well as all of the Professors files and notes on Channel. For a brief moment she felt weird about not at least giving Xavier a courtesy call before doing this, the system wide crash that Channel had caused before leaving had left the mainframe extremely vulnerable to someone with skill perusing files. Of course since she was one of the original designers of the entire mainframe and security system she knew ways in and out of the whole system that probably even Xavier wasn't aware of. Kitty felt a moment of regret at how some of her greatest technological work was part of the secret force of the X-Men, and not made public. She could be rich or lauded and working on bigger world issues, like Internet access to everyone, everywhere. Or creating a free system of education. She glanced over at Peter and thought how his metal reshaping and controlling powers could industrialize countries in years rather than decades. What were they all doing here, with the X-Men, chasing after sociopath mutants? Even she had returned back into the fold over and over again, first with Storm's team and now this one. Why couldn't they just leave? **

**She came to a file noted on Control and opened it, reading while not noticing for a moment the pictures of the past and present X-Men flashing on the screen. **

**Angel.**

**Beast.**

**Bishop.**

**Cannonball.**

**Colossus.**

**Cyclops.**

**Emma Frost.**

**Frenzy.**

**Gambit.**

**Iceman.**

**Jean Grey.**

**Magik.**

**Nightcrawler.**

**Psyche.**

**Psylocke.**

**Rogue.**

**Sage.**

**Shadowcat.**

**Storm.**

**Sunspot.**

**Thunderbird.**

**Wolfsbane.**

**Wolverine.**

**And dozens of others.**

**It took her a moment to focus that each one was an icon link to their personal files but was also directly connected to the subject of the file.**

**Control.**

**How to control each X-Man. How to exert subtle mental influence over them all with his telepathy. After countless hours prepping them in psionic defenses, in working in the Danger Room, in therapeutic analysis, it all came down to how best to herd them, manipulate them.**

**At first she was stunned and then she was horrified as she read the truth of what Xavier had been doing. All along, he had figured them out. Profiled them down to their basest fears and desires and played on that. He'd even according to her file mentally fanned the flames of the slight attraction between her and Colossus.**

**She was revolted, almost to the point of retching, bitter tears coming to her eyes and then she felt Monet's attention shift from the others and the young woman walk over.**

**Kitty closed the file but jettisoned a copy to her personal PDA and erased her footsteps, enabling a program that she'd long buried in the school's mainframe to erase her casual perusals of others files when she was a nosy kid. Now her nosiness had brought her the truth of Xavier and his school.**

**"Are you all right, Kitty?" Monet asked, perplexed at the swell of rage and fear she was feeling from their young leader.**

**Kitty turned, blank faced and nodded at Monet. "Bad memories from an X-Man mission. Peter's father. Sorry. I got distracted. If we're ready? Let's head out, people!" Kitty barked and phased through her seat and the floor, her thoughts as slippery as ice to Monet who nonetheless had gotten one significant impression.**

**Kitty was lying to her.**

**Paris, France:**

**Selene had lived everywhere. And every _when_. She'd supped with and occasionally _on_, more figures in recorded history than anyone else alive on the planet. She was one of the First Mutants, as she liked to coin herself. She had been everything from a whore to a washerwoman, every station in between and a few dozens of times. The world in all of its grandeur and complexity had proved blessedly entertaining and fruitful to her. It had taken her nearly a thousand years of study to become the mage she was and yet she couldn't imagine the power that Wraith held. Sitting on his stone throne, tentacles from below writhing, occasional screaming animal and human faces protruding from the tentacles, he seemed only focused on the scrying pool in the center of his top floor suite at the Four Seasons.**

**Selene briefly wondered how the world would react if they knew such a being lived in palatial comforts in the fabled city of love?**

**"Your X-Men toys returned from the depths of space as promised," Wraith said bluntly. Both statement and challenge.**

**"As I promised. They are a hearty band of warriors," Selene grinned, standing in a dark sable coat, hair in a turban, dress as obsidian as her heart and intentions. "They lost some of their number though. Replaceable, yes but the Sanctuary city is well on its way to being constructed in less than a year. Emma Frost has proven a wonderful lens to focus our goals through."**

**"Yes, her Genosha survival will make her obsessive about Sanctuary's protection and flourishing. The being Gateway, him and his people, the spell with Talisman, The continent vanishing? Every mage on Earth felt it."**

**"Yes, it was astounding. It's even pleasing to see surprises on the field of battle once in awhile, yes?"**

**"It gives me comfort that Genosha will not be repeated."**

**"Yes, my lord, I know you had plans for the isle."**

**"Grand plans," Wraith murmured angrily, his features sunken back into the perpetual shadows that cloaked him on his throne. "My agents tell me these X-Men will see Bisous. They pursue Marat now instead of Meridian. We need Meridian dead."**

** "Yes, she is an unexpected complication. Her and her bastard child. You know he grows now in the past? We'll have to dispatch the X-Men there to kill him soon. Meridian's power to be invisible to psis and sorcerers alike has allowed her too much freedom on Earth."**

**"Agreed. We knew her child would be, but we didn't foresee her using the formerly winged one. She knows how to cloud and misdirect her moves better than anyone I've faced in a thousand years," Wraith chuckled darkly, almost impressed.**

**Selene's eyes flickered for a moment, one of her low level telepathic assistants sending her a message. "The X-Men face Quantum in New York now. The cost will be dear. But it will serve the anti-mutant hysteria. After Magneto's attack on the city, this will be like a death knell to such intermingling."**

**"Perhaps. But we need the Sanctuary team both hated and yet needed. I do love Paris but it's time to release the Plague. Put Misery into play. As well as the armored beast in Madripoor. We need to co-opt that island through sheer mayhem as well as send a message to Meridian."**

**"Done and done," Selene bowed deeply then swept out into the hallway. For a moment she was lost in thought then she spotted Amara coming out of a room down the hallway.**

**"Oh, my dear child, what I am building for you, you'll never be able to repay," Selene smiled and was gone in the flick of a breeze from the hotel itself before she could be noticed.**

**Amara walked into the penthouse hotel suite, one of four on the entire floor, paused for a moment and looked down the elegant wood and mirror paneled hallway outside of the door. She could've sworn she'd seen something, someone..... Just nerves she decided and went into the massive duplex suite the X-Men had taken over. Johanna was sitting calmly in the living room with Raphael watching television though Amara knew that Johanna had been assigned to watch the young mutant in case Tran within him lost control of him. **

**"Have fun shopping?" Johanna asked.**

** "Yes, you should've come, Johanna, spend some of Xavier's lucre," Amara chuckled. "All of your clothes may have to be custom made but what else is money for than convenience?"**

**"If we get to be here a day longer I might take you up on that," Johanna said hesitantly.**

**"Why the trepidation?" Amara smiled as she swept into the living room and tossed her mink onto a divan.**

**"I guess I'm not used to new friends so fast. The X-Men throws so many of us together and I'm never sure how each of you will react to me," Johanna admitted.**

**"Your allegiance to villains in the past is no better nor worse than the rest of us. In my eyes," Amara shrugged. "You proved yourself to me on Xevan."**

**"Thanks, Amy that does make me feel better. Really," Johanna said with a genuine, bashful smile.**

**"What about me?" Raphael asked.**

**"I voted to slaughter you. Both you and Tran, we coudl do it faster and more expediently now that you're in one body. Excuse me," Amara said shifting from warmth to frost so quickly that even Johanna blinked hard.**

**Amara hurried upstairs to her private bedroom and threw her packages to the floor. She checked her Cartier watch; she had only an hour before Warren would sheppard them all off to St. Bisous, supposedly the greatest clairvoyant on Earth, currently in the employ of the IRC. One thing she had to admit was that the X-Men were expanding her contacts throughout the world. The creation of Sanctuary city was something that Amara hadn't envisioned in her wildest dreams but the merging of San Madre to them, the Institute students on the way there, the welcoming arms of the Australian government was amazing. She thought that the Hellfire Club was a natural allegiance and step up from the X-Men, now she wasn't so sure. Though she thought herself both lucky and prudent to be straddling both of those fences. There was a light knock at her door.**

**"Enter," she said and Carlos walked in. As always he was dressed head to toe in a casual suit and turtleneck, as if he were a man of leisure rather than someone who was becoming a cornerstone of this team. She was pleased though that though he did wear in the field an X-Man black Kevlar uniform for protection, he had removed all of the stylized X's from it. A man who would be his own, even within a group. He was so impressive that Amara watched him as just a man for a moment, a secret smile on her lips.**

**"Did you have a good time shopping?" he asked smoothly, closing the door behind him and sitting on a corner seti. Even Amara was taken by his handsomeness, hair loose, tumbling onto his deep chocolate cashmere jacket. He was the epitome of the idle rich, more at home in the opulent surroundings than anyone but perhaps herself and Warren.**

**"Yes, I've adjusted to the idea of spending time in Australia so I was happy to buy some more suitable clothing. Linens and such. I want my apartment there to be beautiful. And you, how did you spend your afternoon?"**

**"Thinking of you," he smiled.**

**"Don't try to charm me, Carlos," Amara grinned, standing over him, slowly unbuttoning her dress. "We all know you're trapped in the psi fuck with Dani and Warren. And interesting trois in imagination but nothing I would care for in reality."**

**Carlos snatched her hand and pulled her down to face him. "I remember when you used to scald my flesh under me. Are you jealous of my new attachment to Warren and Danielle?"**

**Amara smiled, and whipped open the bottom of her dark burgundy dress, revealing a bustier and garter set. "Do you like it, Carlos? Would you like to get scalded again, my dear?"**

**Carlos grinned at her, her body was beginning to warm slightly to the touch but her eyes were as blank and icy blue as ever, the perfect courtesan. The perfect Red Queen. Unbridled fiery passion on the surface but deadly as an ice storm below.**

**"We have new plans to make. Things have shifted for you and I so rapidly, our plans in the X-Men, within the Hellfire Club need to accommodate such shifts."**

**"Agreed, Carlos," Amara said slowly lowering herself to straddle him. "You've fallen in love, and I've become Queen faster than either of us planned. You came along to be my bodyguard and you've ended up on all fours with Warren behind you and Danielle's thighs firmly fastened around your head."**

**Carlos grinned. "You do have the mouth of something besides a queen, yes?"**

**Amara leaned in, licking his earlobe. "I have the mouth that never left a bishop unsatisfied."**

**"And now you have Deathbird as your guard, yes?" he said his accent becoming more pronounced, the only outward sign that she was getting to him.**

**"A battlefield acquisition. Jealous?"**

**"Why would I be jealous?" Carlos grinned.**

**A voice came from the bathroom. "Mayhap because I lay in Lady Amara's bed and not you."**

**Deathbird stood nude in the bathroom doorway, her feathers boldly not providing any coverage of her flesh at all. The effect was what both women desired, both surprise and arousal from Carlos.**

**"Adjoining bedrooms?" Carlos whispered.**

**"Amongst other joined things," Amara grinned. **

**"I didn't know you fucked the help," Carlos teased.**

**"I fucked you, didn't I?" Amara laughed, stood up and snapped off her bustier, boldly walking over to Deathbird, who draped her arms over Amara's shoulders, her arm feather shielding Amara's half nude body from view. "Carlos, we have a unique opportunity here. To do something for ourselves, mutants and outcasts like Deathbird here."**

**"You have a plan then?" Carlos asked.**

**"Yes, I do but I need to be sure of your allegiance to me first and foremost beyond your psi rapport."**

**"He smells like them both, mistress," Deathbird said, her predatory senses sharp as Wolverine. "Their bond has become genetic."**

**"You see my concern, Carlos?" Amara said innocently. "How to trust you anymore?"**

**"What would it take?" Carlos asked.**

**"Can you break the psi bond?" Amara asked.**

**Carlos paused, his fealty struggling against the truth, finally his eyes lowered. "Dampen, yes. Break, no."**

**"Then you must bring them to my side, Carlos. All that you possess is sworn to me. Bring me the allegiance of Warren and Danielle to my whims."**

**"Impossible!" Carlos barked. "They are not like us, Amara. They are very rigid in their integrities."**

**"I know and I have a solution. You are imbalanced as a triumvirate. But I want two full seats on your "board", if you will."**

**"How?" Carlos asked, perplexed. "Who do you think you can turn so easily? Danielle? I doubt that and Warren is already split and deeply wounded over being used by Meridian. He's likely to rebel for the sake of rebellion."**

**"Carlos, you silly boy. I'm talking about stacking the deck," Amara said and Deathbird stepped away from her and over to Carlos, standing fully nude over him, her sharp bird like eyes staring greedily at him. She opened her right hand and her claws unfurled, the motion so fast that anyone else would've jumped but Carlos kept his perplexed but relaxed pose. Deathbird reached over to his throat and touched a claw to his lips.**

**"Afraid, Spaniard?" Deathbird grinned.**

**"Of you? No," Carlos said simply, no arrogance or challenge behind it. "You belong to _mi reina_ and even she would admit to you that I out value a destitute exiled alien outcast. Also, I am the Black Bishop, you aren't even a provisional pawn. You will address me as such or I will snap your neck like a barnyard hen."**

**Deathbird was about to retort when Carlos' hand snapped out faster than even her enhanced senses could see and grabbed her by the throat. Both applying physical and psionic pressure he easily brought Deathbird to her knees before him.**

**"Very good, Carlos. She needs to understand that there is no division between us," Amara said coldly.**

**"Shall I kill her, _mi reina_, as proof of my fealty to you and you only?" **

**"No, allow her to complete the task I assigned her," Amara grinned and walked over to her bedroom door and locked it.**

**Carlos loosened his grip on Deathbird's throat and her mind, the shock of his speed and power apparent on her face. "I've never been struck down so fast!?" she sputtered.**

**"Then we have much to teach you, warrior," Carlos said gently. "You have been an empress and a rebel all your life, you can join us or you can plot against us, but I am immortal, child. I will kill you even if you slice my head clean off, understood?"**

**Deathbird looked deep into his eyes and smiled, she turned her head to Amara who was standing over them. "You were right, mistress, I do like him."**

**"The plan?" Carlos asked and Deathbird moved her right hand to her left wrist and slashed it, the blood flowing freely, she then silently put her claws back onto his mouth. His eyes tightened in understanding. "You would become my servant to join the rapport? You would take in the Beast within me to bond you to me? Willingly?"**

**"As my Queen commands," Deathbird whispered.**

**"Why?" Carlos asked.**

**Deathbird's eyes shimmered for a moment then her voice grew heavy with both emotion and embarrassment. "I have _no one_. Anywhere in the universe. A brother and sister mad and another brother looking for my head. I tired of ruling an Empire. My children were dead, my lovers executed or run off. I have been a pawn to many, including your Earth's Apocalypse but it is my nature, my very essence to need a pack. I am mixed with avian ancestry but flying alone has brought me ruin, disgrace, ostracism. The two of you, both human and mutant, are the first who have ever offered me not just servitude or allegiance but a family, a place to be. I will fight by your side, by the X-Men's side for a chance to be both safe and with at least two in the universe, who for whatever motives, care for my existence. I cannot promise you forever, because I am no fool and neither of you are either, it would be immature of you two to believe me if I made such a boast. But I offer you myself, fully. For now." **

**Amara and Carlos were silent and then Amara's hand slowly touched the mounting of hair and feathers on Deathbird's head. "You are mine now, Cal'syee Neramani; you will never be alone again."**

**Carlos nodded, the feeling of aloneness a deep wound that he too knew, it had drawn him to Amara and her to him. He opened his mouth and let his tongue rub against Deathbird's talon until it bled then he pulled her wrist to his mouth and drank in her blood, holding it in his mouth, he put his hand gently behind her neck and pulled her in for the kiss, the kiss of joining. The Beast eagerly flowing from his blood into Deathbird's, as he had done with Danielle weeks ago and unbeknownst to anyone, Amara, years beforehand. **

**Carlos looked at Amara and allowed their psionic rapport to open, they'd both kept it shutdown for weeks around the X-Men, never once even hinting that it existed and slowly, like pulling a child out of a darkened womb, they drew Cal'syee into their mental bubble, Carlos turned their mental attention to the bubble right next to theirs, the one that contained his connection to Warren and Danielle. **

**_Are you ready? It will be abrupt_, Carlos warned and then merged the psi membranes, merging the psi rapport to include all five beings, though Amara hastily retreated into the special section of his mind that Carlos held aloof for her. She watched mentally as Deathbird joined the rapport between the three X-Men and smiled.**

**"What did you do?!" Warren demanded of Carlos as he burst into Carlos' private bedroom. "I feel her! Deathbird inside of me, touching me!"**

**Carlos nodded. "My psi talent besides immortality and empathy is to create psi rapports through blood. It is how the Beast infected me and only my mutant powers allowed me to imprison him within. Deathbird is a strong latent psi, as are all of her people I suspect. Her shields are formidable, on par with a trained high order telepath. You do not, because you've never seen beyond your own losses in the past few weeks, appreciate the strain upon me that having you and Danielle connected so deeply to me presents. Cal'syee will provide several things---reinforcement, psionic reinforcement within all of us to protect you from Meridian and me from the beast within. Two, a stronger link to Danielle which I feel is fading over distance and time. Three, someone similar to you to be your aide de camp in battle and rear guard. Four, a level of security on her and her motives. When you can provide all that I have in one simple voluntary sharing to push us closer to our goals, you will have the right to question me."**

**Warren stood mute then closed the bedroom door. "Carlos, I'm worried about many things, yes. But I'm also worried about you, I don't know if Cal or Dani would be able to feel it but I can see that you're binding us tighter to you, because there's something inside of you that you're losing a battle against."**

**Carlos walked over to Warren and gently took his face in his hands. "You are such a beautiful man. In both spirit and form. I thank you for what you can offer me but I am as close to a psychic vampire as you would count a physical one and I far more frightened of what is to come than what has passed in all of my lifetimes. Sometimes I feel like there is an evil being but only a room away, seeing through my eyes, manipulating us all. I have pledged my soul to you and Danielle. I would barter my eyes to the Devil to keep you both safe. Trust that though I walk a razored tightrope, I am aware of how to balance."**

**Carlos moved closer and kissed Warren fully on the lips. First resisted, then his mouth slowly opened and all of the mingled desires, the mingled psi impressions within Warren flooded open, their desires and attractions drawing him deeper into Carlos' kiss as traces of blood, traces of the Beast slipped from Carlos into Warren. **

**Paris, France:**

**"Monsieur Emile St. Bisous," the tall elegantly man dressed bowed politely at his guests in the large sun room. He was well over six feet, light beige skin, obviously racially mixed from his features and his straw colored hair, with a perpetual grin of knowing, almost a smirk on his face. But not condescendng, rather chiding and clucking like a mohter hen. He stood comfortably in linen slacks and a deep burgundy smoking jacket, a man obviously accustomed to his pleasures and finery in life. His deep brown eyes took in the assembled X-Men slowly, almost boring into them and at the same time there was a playful smile on his lips. To him new people represented a mental adventure; he didn't take their somber, rather dangerous appearances as a threat. Instead to him it was like meeting new hybrid celebrities. As a mutant, he'd of course heard of the X-Men, even having been contacted by X Corp to affiliate himself to Xavier's organizations. Bisous had politely but firmly turned X Corp down and instead aligned himself with the IRC. A man of his abilities and morality willing to serve but requiring a greater level of protection and at the same time freedom than Xavier could provide.**

**"We're here on official IRC business," Warren explained calmly, all of the X-Men in civilian clothing, though Nemesis had elected to wear a dark cloak and hood that obscured her mask, which she never removed. Warren would've been worried about her if not for the Canadian and Australian governments vouching for her. She'd also proven herself but she clearly was drawing Bisous' attention. He barely paid any attention to the rest of them, his attention fixing onto her.**

**"My consultation services to the IRC have brought me into contact with interesting beings. None as interesting as you, my dear," Bisous said to Nemesis crossing the room to clasp and kiss her gloved hand. The emanations from the woman of colliding identities and possibilities, she was literally a nexus of contradictions. And from the tightness in her hand, she was rigidly terrified of what Bisous would both see and reveal. He let his eyes lay on her full face mask and from even his most subtle psychic probings he felt only indomitable shields, mental, mystical, and emotional. All that existed of the woman was a physical presence and the wisp of a mental one. Fascinating. **

**"I am not interested in making friends, sorcerer," Nemesis said bluntly, snatching her hand away and with a flicker of her arm, her saber was revealed under her cloak. Nemesis stood ready to draw it should he not take her blunt hint and even if necessary kill the man if he revealed anything of her identity. Warren audibly groaned, she was ruder than Wolverine.**

**"Monsieur St. Bisous, we have need of your skill," Carlos said laying the large leather carry case on the coffee table, opening it to reveal Marat's axe. He hoped that the timely act would break the tension or possibility of watching Bisous fly across the room. Of the weeks she'd been with them, it had been made clear by herself and Northstar that Nemesis was beyond reproach but secretive about herself, her face supposedly scarred. Therefore her identity was irrelevant and her loyalty to the X-Me unquestionable after the Brood War.**

**Bisous grinned slightly at Nemesis' rebuff then turned, his linen suit stretched over his slight paunch and swept across the room to the sofa, to examine the weapon. One hand pulled a magnifying glass out of one pocket but instead he merely waved his hand over it, small glitterings sparkled from his fingertips. Then he leaned down with the magnifying glass and examined several inscriptions then laid his hand on the blade itself.**

**"Fascinating. Asgardian. Some enchantments, not many though. Mass produced I would say. A leader's weapon to his soldiers. It passed _into_ a mutant---Kurt? His name is Kurt? Might I ask why you didn't get the Promised One to tell you this? My mystical and mutant clairvoyance are considerable but not as attuned as hers. Talisman I believe she calls herself. Her powers are far greater than a mutant conjurer like me. I am a librarian; she is Merlin, in comparison."**

**Amara snickered. "She was slightly put out by making a continent vanish."**

**Bisous smiled his ever present smile even broader. "Oh, the whole Community ---sorcerers and such---have been ablaze about it in the chat rooms! Quite the feat. We're all suitably impressed."**

**"Sorcerers are on AOL?" Johanna snorted, arms folded, still looking like a walking threat in a dark red pants suit. **

**Bisous grinned. "My dear, sorcerers _own_ AOL. But enough about the investment opportunities created by my ilk. You seek a young woman and a young man. This Kurt. The woman---Danielle, yes? She is displaced in time and space. Alive. Unharmed. The man, he was displaced as well but I get a blank on him. He isn't dead though. He may be outside of my range to find."**

**"What exactly is your range?" Raphael asked.**

** "Ah, the mutant/mystic/disembodied spirit speaks," Bisous smiled. "Don't be alarmed. My wards revealed you all to me as you crossed my threshold. How would you expect such a valuable mutant like me to survive if I didn't know immediately what was coming into my home?"**

**"No ego there," Amara murmured.**

**"Yes, we are two for the moment. But soon to separate," Raphael said and everyone could hear the slight remorse in his voice. Embodying Tran seemed to have given the young man some sort of comfort, self esteem as well as purpose that had been taken away with Holy Mother's demise. Warren eyed the young man suspiciously, what would they do with him when Tran was no longer able to reside in that body? And what would they do about Tran himself, a quick glance at Shan showed that she both kept her distance purposefully from Raphael and at the same time seemed grateful for his presence, her body her own once again. But only briefly. Days more at the most. Another problem, Warren realized.**

**"The bearer of this axe said his name was Marat," Carlos offered.**

**Bisous' eyes squinted at Carlos. "Magic in you too, eh, Allegra? Such a magical group. Marvelous. Marat? Yes, I feel the name on the axe. He is old. But nothing new for an Asgardian. He does have a taste of the French on him. I would say he knew the Marat of the Terror. Amazing how so much is intertwined, no? He is connected to your Danielle, they know each other. Oh my, intimately. Yes, they fought together for a long time. He is baiting you though. That is clear. He's also striking at Danielle's heart. You X-Men are precious to her which is why he's pledged vengeance on you for her betrayal. Such a tangled web. He is an attractive thing though. Quite fuckable. Full of passion and spice. Hung, I'm almost positive from my vision."**

**Shan actually bleated out a guffaw and everyone stared at her for a moment. "Sorry."**

**"Well, he was kinda hot and tight and definitely cute. If you like the type," Johanna said thoughtfully.**

**"I knew she'd be trouble," Amara muttered behind a deep black mink coat, her blonde hair spilling around her face. "Bisous, how can we retrieve her? That's what we're all here for, not the sordid details."**

**"The link she shares with the clipped angel and the contained beast," Bisous said waving his hands dramatically at Warren and Carlos. "How do the American's say----"duh"---yes, that's it?"**

**Amara actually turned her face to hide her laughter. She actually liked the wizard, his bluntness was charmingly refreshing from a psi. **

**"But you have bigger problems. The blue woman. Oh my, devilish bitch, isn't she?" Bisous said with naked concern. "Your group's destiny is tied tightly to this woman. She is evil in ways that defy the simple use of the word."**

**"We should kill her then?" Nemesis hissed.**

**Bisous shook his head. "What makes you think you can? She's plunged her fist deeply into the destiny of your people," he said directly to Warren. "It was both not her intention and something she's willing to take advantage of. I can't see her clearly though, she must have some mystics clouding her spirit. Psis too. She's most thorough. Old too. Older than even this Marat boy," Bisous stood up and touched Warren's forehead. "Oh my, she's danced through your mind. Used your body and your sperm to make a babe. A deadly babe. You certainly are nothing like those nice Avengers, such a complicated group you are."**

**"Tell me about it," Shan grimaced.**

**Bisous walked over to Shan and touched her forehead. "Oh, the floating spirit on the Latin boy belongs to you? Your brother? You consumed him and the two of you don't understand how to change that? It solves itself through death and life happening very soon. Such varied aspects of we mutants, no? Interesting. You know I do spiritual counseling and you people need it desperately. Of course that is for a fee, a minimum of six sessions. My secretary, Susanne will forward on the information by email, oui?"**

**"By the Gods," Amara groaned, shaking her head then shrank back as Bisous walked closer to her. "What in blazes could you have to say about me?"**

**"Hmm, a Red Queen in fire. Interesting. Of fire, surrounded by fire but not burning. And yet you have a new pet. Is that the one outside of St. Bisous' home? Perched?" Bisous smiled. "You think you're ready, Lady Amara but you're not. You're about to be eaten alive in the Hellfire court. Pack light."**

**"You can sense Deathbird?" Warren said in shock, he'd had Deathbird shadowing them as backup but didn't want to bring her into the villa. Also having grown up around telepaths, Warren felt that Deathbird's visibly naked menace would be too overwhelming, it was bad enough that Johanna, Carlos and Raphael were here and of questionable pasts. He didn't want to give Bisous the wrong idea or impression of them all.**

**"I can sense which one of you dies first. Actually two of you. It happens within the same hour but then there's a rebirth. Not like a phoenix though. Dear God, not like a phoenix, that's a woman with one fucked up astrological chart. I eventually stopped flipping the cards on her, it got to be too upsetting and complicated. Jean Madelyne Phoenix Dark Phoenix, I told Xavier that Bisous watches soap operas, he doesn't read them," Bisous said grimly then moved to the doorway. "You have an appointment at the IRC, yes, I will excuse myself then. It is about the Hungarian problem. The woman, Misery and her little cult that is growing, growing, growing. I did some consultation with them. I told them that situation was a mess from the beginning. But no one listens to Bisous, they just use me. Oh, and do be careful of the Louvre it is my favorite place to meditate."**

**"Be careful of it?" Raphael asked, perplexed.**

**"Yes, the battle with the giant metal hunter. Like the ones who stepped on poor Genosha."**

**"Sentinels," Warren said grimly and the team was silent until Amara spoke.**

**"Well, for a flaming faggot, he certainly gave us all something to think about." **

**Paris, France:**

**International Resource Center:**

**"This place worries me, Warren," Shan said bluntly, the two of them the only X-Men in the meeting with Tom Calendula and Natsume Shikibu. "Their interference is what has freed Channel."**

**"I made a miscalculation," Shikibu said as he entered the room. "We could not allow such a mutant to remain in the hands of the Hellfire Club. That was an error on Xavier's part."**

**"I have to agree, Warren," Tom said as he followed Shikibu into the conference room. "I understand from your report the position you were put into, facing down so many mutant threats but Shaw is dangerous enough as a businessman with just his mutant agenda. With Channel in his possession we had serious concerns."**

**"Is the Hellfire Club aware of your awareness of them?" Shan asked.**

**"Now they are, I'm sure. But it must've been expected. Shaw isn't a fool. He doesn't want to be a public mutant but he knows that his battles have drawn attention," Tom answered easily.**

**"Thank you for Bisous, he's a remarkable man," Warren said calmly. **

**"Yes, unfortunately his clairvoyance and mystical skills only work on objects or in person. He was amused by the one called Deathbird perched nearby. We had twenty snipers trained on her. Bisous has better security than the American President he's so valuable to the IRC."**

**"I apologize for that, Tom, I didn't think she was of an appropriate bent to bring in. I'm also learning in my old age to keep a wildcard outside of the purview of the game because of the enemies we're racking up."**

**Shan kept her mouth shut, there had been heated debate on the Blackbird when Deathbird had joined them as they left Australia three days ago. Warren had suddenly snatched her out of the Sanctuary security team and drawn in Karma too. Some felt that he had a secret agenda. A noble one though, the retrieval of Danielle at any cost or allegiance necessary. Deathbird was still a volatile quantity among them, her allegiance based upon her essentially having no where else to go and needing asylum. Shan was starting to have a deep concern as to where Warren was leading the team.**

**"Our files on Deathbird are spotty at best but yes, I can see how you wouldn't want to bring her into such a sensitive psis home. We have other projects that the X-Men would be perfect to look into. Especially now with Sanctuary establishing itself as a city."**

**Warren shook his head. "We made no formal plans for that, Tom. It happened by almost accident and happenstance. South America refused to take back the residents of San Madre, we could've just leave them abandoned in the world. Between, X Corp, Worthington Inc. and Frost Industries and the Australian government we're working out provisional status but you'd have to talk to Alex Rosten about al of that. He handles the legal and jurisdictional quagmire we create behind us."**

**Tom nodded. "Understood. I've worked with Alex on some international projects in the past. Watch yourself, Warren, he's a smart one. Always working the angles. Now on to business at hand we have a couple of pressing issues. One here and Paris and the second in Thailand with links to Madripoor."**

**Shan actually laughed out loud. "I believe Prince Viper will have our heads if we come back to her isle. The X-Men have all but destroyed it!"**

**Tom smiled too. "An alien invasion, the Marauders, the destruction of Frost Industries aeronautics plant there and now the looting of several ocean liners carrying sensitive electronic warfare items. The Gods seem to have spit on the island for now. Viper is finding out the price of having a rogue nation that will do business with anyone and is not protected by anyone. Except it seems, you X-Men. Warren, we have a line on where the tankers good are being trafficked to and unfortunately it seems that old sparring partners of yours are responsible."**

**"Who?"**

**"Mystique and her Brotherhood."**

**"Oh, wonderful," Shan sighed.**

**"And the second project?" Warren asked.**

**"We have a cult here in Paris that had origins in Hungary, lead by a mutant named Misery. A small team needs to infiltrate it and eradicate it. It seems that Misery possesses the mutant ability to make others commit suicide. And she's made threats to unleash her power on world leaders. She won't allow anything but mutants in her presence and all of our mutant operatives are tagged already."**

**Warren shook his head. "That sounds impossible to send anyone in. Who could I send in?"**

**"Myself and Raphael. I can protect my own mind and Tran can protect Raphael's," Shan suggested.**

**"Raphael is still.......new to the team," Warren said hesitantly to Shan, not wanting to say too much in front of Tom and Shikibu.**

**"His experience makes his psi shields far more formidable than anyone else on hand right now, Warren and our resources can't continue to be stretched so thin. We either have to start making a difference or not," Shan offered. "So far Channel is a debacle, the Marauders was a trap and the Brood displaced five thousand people. We've been entangled, yes, but we've made little difference. Stopping an insane cult would be a great help as well as the liner thefts."**

**"You need to listen to Shan, Warren. You stopped a world invasion but only a few key people around the world know that. You need to start playing ball more if you want the IRC to remain an open link to you."**

**"Understood, Tom and I'm going to send in a third X-Man with Shan to round off the team and make me feel more secure about their safety and effectiveness."**

**"Who?" Shan asked.**

**Warren just smiled enigmatically.**

**Sanctuary Base,**

**Australian Desert:**

**Liz chuckled as her fingertips sparkled with bright pops of harmless fireworks and erupted into blooming flowers. The dozen or so children crowded on her porch clapped loudly and she smiled. It was nice while recovering to use her powers simply for entertainment. **

**"Again! Again!" the children called out and Liz was about to show them a small trick with animating dirt when she felt a presence. She looked behind her into her darkened home and shook her head.**

**_How rude_.**

**"I can't now, children. Later. Let me rest," she smiled warmly ad then excused herself, one of the San Madre teachers leading the children away. Liz looked out at the town streets that had been abandoned a week ago and were now full of people walking back and forth, even stores being opened. Jessica Drew had done an amazing job in a week of keeping the people of San Madre both focused on building a new life and more importantly integrating themselves into Sanctuary. Everything had been destroyed in the chaos of moving the town through deep space except for their church so the Australian government and Frost Industries had been working furiously to rebuild San Madre and create basic necessities from the Sanctuary town. Worthwhile work, Liz thought to herself as she shut herself back into her small house, she'd been lucky to be able to take over the whole place on the outskirts of town.**

**"Next time call first," Liz said and slowly the astral form of Charles Xavier materialized.**

**"My apologies, I didn't want to startle the children and it is quite the effort to even project this far from Westchester," he smiled but she could see the strain in his face. "Even with the use of Cerebra."**

**"Checking up on us? How do you like what we've accomplished so far?"**

**"The Sanctuary team is proving to be amazing. Attracting so many, sheltering so many."**

**"Is this the Genosha concern again?"**

**"Partly, yes. I'm looking at....doing some things with Genosha and Sanctuary has yet to become public knowledge. I hope that will protect you two fold. We mutants need to create many bases but not targets."**

**"Yes," Liz nodded. She sat down at her small wooden table and with a wave of her hand; the refrigerator across the room opened and a pitcher of lemonade soared over, followed by a glass from the cupboard.**

**"Telekinesis?" Xavier smiled.**

**"After a fashion. The mystical use is more of matter moving through matter to matter, not as mental. I got the equivalent of a mystical hernia helping Gateway and his people vanish this continent so I'm sticking to soft, light spells."**

**"You too need training," Xavier nodded. "I may be able to provide a network to you of sorcerers to help you."**

**Liz was about to say something off key when she realized he was only trying to help so she nodded. "Thank you, yes I could use some more help. I do have questions only a mystic could answer. But that isn't why you came here, is it?"**

**"Blunt as ever," Xavier mused. "The Meridian situation deeply concerns me. From what I've read of the sketchy reports on her she is a dangerous mutant."**

**"With libidinous powers," Liz smirked. "I wasn't on the team that encountered her nor the one that supposedly blew her and her child up."**

**"Warren survived so we must assume that she did as well. X Corp technicians have checked out the Frost industries site and suspect some sort of temporal distortion. I suspect that the destruction of the experimental hyper drive was fully intended by Meridian to activate her abilities or her child's."**

**"The fact that she didn't allow Warren to accompany them or to simply die in the explosion suggests that she still has need of him in the future. Or if she's time traveling, the past. This of course gives us all grave concerns about Warren. His lack of powers, wings, doesn't exactly make it logical to demote him as team leader. Storm lead with no powers," Liz said logically.**

**"Agreed. When you are well, I would like you take extra time away from the teams before returning to active duty. Perhaps even go on a short vacation."**

**"To where?" Liz asked and her laptop flashed on that an email had been received.**

**"I've put close to a thousand X Corp staff onto finding Meridian, this is what they've come up with. Good hunting, Elizabeth. The woman poses a greater danger than even Magneto, I daresay. She seems to be both ruthless and conniving. Tell me of this Sabine clone at Sanctuary?"**

**"Emma wants to keep him/her close. Her deep telepathic probes as well as my discreet mystical ones prove that yes, it is a clone with no nefarious intent. I believe that when Warren attacked, Meridian thought Sabine dead."**

**"Though a ruse is still possible?" Xavier asked.**

**"Yes, even within the scans. I do know from the reports that Meridian seemed to exert some kind of symbiotic control over the other Sabine, advising during the battle in her astral form. She is a dangerous and worthy opponent, Charles. Just what do you expect me to do when I find her?"**

**"I'm sure that the closer you get you'll be able to judge when and if to call in reinforcements and if necessary, if she is a threat to the entire Earth and time stream, I loathe to say, eradicate her."**

**"Eradicate? You mean kill, Charles. Are you asking me to kill, Old Man?" **

**"Unfortunately, Elizabeth, you are put in the place of being a Higher Order being at such a young human age. I cannot trust the maturity of my own X-Men with this woman as a threat; you alone can decide her fate. This is why we must keep this secret."**

**Liz took a sip of lemonade and thought about the coming Reckoning. Xavier was right in ways he couldn't fathom. "I'm mended enough to handle investigating and can take care of myself beyond that should I encounter trouble. I'll leave in a week. You still looked strained. Are you all right?"**

**"Good, and good luck. I'm also conducting a conversation with Emma across the Sanctuary town, I couldn't appear to just you without her noticing."**

**"Of course not. How wily," Liz mused as he faded away.**

**_Charles, everything is speeding up. So much has happened. So much potential. Why it's almost orgasmic! You do remember what those are, don't you? Scott does_! Emma said telepathically as she stepped out of the shower in her apartment and wrapped her body in a light silk robe.**

**_How refreshing to he_ar, Charles laughed. _I haven't seen you this happy in years._**

**_This place has such potential, Charles, it will be a jewel in our collective crowns. The Hellfire Club controls vast resources but even they haven't envisioned a city or a continent at their disposal_.**

**_You envision that far?_**

**_Its only natural, Charles. There are close to four hundred students that will be coming here in the next year through X Corp. Imagine a year later when word really gets out? We'll multiply that by a thousand in less than a year. Mutants need a safe haven. Which is why I want to talk about creating a copy of Cerebra down here. We need to create a telepathic null field and mind key if you will. I want to use telepathy to make the town seemingly moving sporadically in time and space. Between that and the Shi'ar cloaking systems we can effectively have an invisible town._**

**_Your experiences in Genosha making you this cautious? _**

**_Yes, Charles. We have a limited window of time before our location is surmised or known widely_.**

**_I've decided to repopulate Genosha, to raise it from the ashes as it were. It would be helpful if there were an institute in New York as well, Emma, I believe you should operate it with Scott_.**

**Emma hesitated as she sat down at her vanity table. _You're asking me to give up a lot, Charles, a city for a school? That's bad business_.**

**_I need key people in key places, Emma_.**

**_Who would manage Sanctuary? We have a skeleton staff as is_.**

**_Teach them what they need to know and do, we'll both monitor them from our respective corners of the world. And this I would daresay is a higher calling than business so the equation isn't balanced_.**

**_Fine, Charles, I'll defer to you on this, give me another few weeks to wrap things up here and I'll feel satisfied that it can manage itself. I trust I'll see you at the Hellfire Annual Ball in Venice, Italy next week_?**

**Xavier visibly and telepathically grimaced. _I will be there_.**

**Newark Airport:**

**Iceman appeared out of thin air; or rather air moisture in the middle of the runway, dropped to one knew and really seriously considered why he was constantly trying to show off his new found abilities. This spatial/moisture relocation ability seemed really nifty but it was like running a hundred yard dash after a triathlon. He was always exhausted from it. He felt a sense of total mental incoherency when he first reemerged or reanimated or reintegrated. He was still unclear on exactly what he was doing. But then he dropped flat to the ground as a 747 roared over him. **

**Iceman looked up and it looked like pandemonium in the air a, not to mention fire trucks, police cars, Army vehicles all screeching around the terminals. From the DaCosta Hangar he could see that a battle was engaged. How long had he been in transit? Too long he realized and began icing himself towards the hangar. He'd found that moving as an ice wave was a lot faster than an ice slide, though not as fun. He was becoming more and more a composite of moisture than a man in the use of his abilities. This was both frightening and exhilarating.**

**M was socking some guy in a suit pretty hard and without blinking the man socked her back, sending her into what looked like the stratosphere. Without hesitating, Iceman engulfed the man in the ice wave then reformed his own body a few feet outside of it. Shadowcat phased up from the ground near him.**

**"He's at least an Alpha level mutant. Multiple abilities!" Shadowcat yelled as the ice block around Quantum shattered and she phased herself and Iceman through the flying debris. "Paulie, move in!"**

**"About friggin' time!" Paulie cheered from high above then rocketed to the ground and smashed into Quantum, lifting him back up.**

**"Oh, this is interesting," Quantum chuckled, grabbed Paulie by the throat and sent a wave of energy through him then sent the X-Men plummeting helplessly to the ground. **

**"We try to please," M said through gritted teeth as she flew up behind Quantum and slammed an iron girder into him, sending him to the tarmac below. "Shadowcat, my comm link is picking up about a thousand frantic airliners plummeting; we need to re-decide our priorities."**

**"I know," Shadowcat said, knowing that Quantum's intention had all along been to get her to divide her forces. "He seems to have done some kind of electromagnetic burst on the entire airport and from what he's done so far, I would surmise that he manipulates quantum energy."**

**"Quantum energy manipulation!" M said stunned. "That's impossible."**

**"Says the flying girl!" Paulie said as he flew up next to her then dove down into Quantum, fists swinging wildly. **

**M reported. "Paulie is back on Quantum and I can see about a dozen Hummers full of anti terrorist forces heading towards us from the far terminals. We have about five minutes."**

**Quantum swatted Paulie back and was hit by him with a concussive bolt.**

**"Finally someone to really let loose on!" Paulie grinned pleased as he slammed kinetic backed fists into the man, caving his body around his fists.**

**Impossibly, Quantum stood under the impact of the energy, looked at Paulie curiously then reached out and with a twist of his hand and a flash of energy, shut down Paulie's gauntlets. "Borrowed power, mutant? Pathetic." Quantum's hands glowed and then a concussive bolt slammed into Paulie rocketing him up and beyond the airport, an actual sonic boom erupting from Paulie as he took off.**

**"Holy shit!" Iceman gasped, iced up his body into jagged ice armor and smashed into Quantum. Quantum blasted away the ice but Iceman kept reforming, freezing Quantum and pummeling him at the same time, the conflagration of ice and energy visible for miles around. Iceman would briefly appear in a physical form, almost like a wraith of ice, amass tons from the moisture laden air then smash tons onto Quantum. Quantum's energy erupted out as heat, light, kinetic force, whatever it took to disrupt or destroy the onslaught, his powers as inexhaustible as Iceman's were seemingly.**

**"He can't keep that up forever," Peter said to Shadowcat, from a dozen yards away, she'd hung back to study Quantum.**

**"No, he can't. I think I see Quantum's weakness, don't let him touch you or examine you. If he can perceive you, he can counter you. Or at least the energy we must all give off," Shadowcat said and phased underground. She came back up, intangible in the middle of the ice-energy maelstrom and took a deep breath. The next part was all theory as she phased into Quantum's body, expecting to be surprised by what her and M had deduced in a quick telepathic confab and found herself in a dark void where a tall man was standing, seemingly lit from within. He was tall and angular, he looked almost like his brother Camus except slightly older, his hair a steel gray. Whenever he had lost his body, he must've been in at least his late fifties.**

**"Channel, I presume?" she said grimly.**

**"How did you get here?" Channel said in shock.**

**"I can see you because you're not exactly psionic; you're slipping between molecules like I do. Invading molecules. I simply followed you into the dimension you inhabit and move around in," Shadowcat said as she looked around, it was like being inside of Quantum's eyes looking outward. This is how Channel perceived his possessions, like being on the Bridge of a ship.**

**"Foolish girl!" Channel growled and charged at her.**

**Shadowcat easily feinted and dropped him with several quick jabs to his stomach and face. Here, they could touch each other. But Channel also had spent years as a phantom, he lacked true fighting abilities that weren't stolen from others. And from what she could see, he was piggybacked on Quantum, not in control. Interesting.**

**_Monet, you there?_**

_**Barely, Kitty, your thoughts are fuzzy to my telepathy. I have a half sense of you.**_

_**I'm in another dimension sort of within Quantum. We were right about the molecular slipping that Channel does. I've taken him out. I think I can help take Quantum out as well. Or at least hurt him.**_

_**Hurry, Kitty, it's not going well out here. Quantum is destroying the tarmac and iceman's constructs. **_

**Shadowcat phased her arm into the unconscious Channel and felt for his connection to Quantum, she realized that this was all around her a mental construct of what both her and Channel needed to perceive to maintain sanity, some sort of quasi-telepathic link to the body they were in. They were just energy now. She could feel a bit of a pulling at her structure, as if the real world wanted her back. But she wasn't done yet. She'd recently learned how to move out of phase with the Earth, to travel instantaneously. But she had a better idea for Channel.**

**_M, initiate Stage One_! Shadowcat yelled telepathically and phased Channel who woke up screaming. At the same instant, M reached to hold Channel's mind, to think of it in her hands, squeezing it. He was not just a phantom like Kitty or a psionic creature like Malice; he was a synergy of both. He had to be attacked on both levels simultaneously, probably the only way to knock him unconscious.**

**Shadowcat herself screamed and phased out of Quantum's body overwhelmed by what she'd done. Their plan hadn't been to imprison him in Quantum but instead in his brother, however Shadowcat's' arms were coruscating with emerald energy, Channel's energy signature. Out of phase, she could phase him or parts of him. And though integrated, his power was still a part of him. She dropped to her knees, noticing that Iceman had pulled back but that Quantum was on his knees as well.**

**"You hurt me through him, bitch!" Quantum roared and reached for Shadowcat's throat, his arm passing through. She grinned maniacally and raised her arms, touching his body with the emerald energy again, they both screamed and she lurched backwards, phasing through the tarmac.**

**Quantum screamed and smashed his fists through the ground, searching for her, she'd done something to his energy powers. **

**"No!" Peter yelled and slammed into Quantum from behind then cart wheeled to his feet, his arms covered by razor sharp, jagged extended claws, almost two feet long. He began viciously slashing at Quantum who wasn't prepared for the steel/iron combination and shrieked as he started to bleed. Quantum finally was able to dodge under a swipe and punch Peter resoundingly in the stomach, the cracking of bones audible.**

**"How about me?" M said as she dropped in-between them and decked Quantum with all of her strength, dropping Quantum to one knee but not knocking him out as she'd hoped. She theorized that he was manipulating gravity tightly around his body to increase his density and create a simulacrum of invulnerability. Her hope that Shadowcat's interruption of his quantum field from within, should've worked to negate all of his myriadical energy manipulating abilities. M envisioned the mathematical and physics symbols in her mind and realized she hadn't compensated a co-sign. All of the thoughts an recalculations done in less than a third of second, and still he caught her by surprise.**

**"How about you join your friend?" Quantum snapped, grabbed M's vest and hurled her skyward in the general direction he'd sent Paulie. It was difficult to expend quantum energy as pure strength but Quantum realized, his thoughts no longer aware of Channel, which they hadn't planned on the ghost girl's powers. He had to beat them back until he could control the totality of quantum energy again, which he felt was soon. She'd somehow used Channel to access Quantum's brain and shutdown his ability to focus, his thoughts felt hazy, drugged. Quantum angrily reached for Peter, deciding to snap him in half when suddenly the young man grinned and became intangible as Shadowcat snatched him into the ground.**

**_Why grin at that? _Quantum wondered until he looked up and saw the sleek object in front of him. At nearly Mach 1 the Avery slammed into Quantum and carried him into the upper atmosphere.**

**"That was savage," Kitty said to Peter as the reemerged. **

**"His wounds were already healed from my attack," Peter said as the metal on his hands and arms seeped back into the tubing of his costume, "he's both invulnerable and a fast healer. That kind of claw attack would've cut a tank into ribbons."**

**Peter fell to one knee.**

**"You ok?" she asked.**

**"It was high energy expenditure. Plus controlling the Avery. I still have him though, going higher and higher. But there are fighter jets following and a large plane turning northward. Lots of emergency equipment coming. Wait a second, I think I can help," like always Peter's eyes flashed into a deep metallic sheen and he seemed to be speaking to her and to himself at the same time. Or maybe to metal, she wasn't sure. There was also a slight hollowness to his voice, a tinniness that made her wonder how deeply metal permeated his body, was he completely metal integrated like his father? She couldn't remember much of the files on exactly what Colossus had been, there had been very few metallurgical studies done on him. Or maybe there had, she thought darkly about the Xavier Controls.**

**"Hard to control ship this way, so much metal coming at us. Around us, it calls to me. It sings to me. It all sings to me to sing with it."**

**Kitty wasn't sure what to do with Peter, his jumbled rambling seemingly half to her and half to himself as he stood up, closed his eyes and thin blue electrical arcs seemed to extend from his fingertips into the air. She saw a bright flash in the sky and then a dozen airplane lights appeared overhead.**

**"Wow, what did you do?"**

**Peter grinned weakly. "I used the Avery's star drive to generate a counter pulse and was able to direct it at the airplanes. They lost altitude but should be able to restart without crashing."**

**"The President's plane?" Shadowcat said numb.**

**"Destroyed," Peter said sadly.**

**Bobby ran out of the hangar, he and Roberto pulling a groggy Northstar and captive Camus.**

**"Where is my brother?" Camus demanded wildly.**

**Ice manacles and mouth piece appeared on him and Bobby grunted. 'you're lucky we're not leaving you to the police to explain killing the President!"**

**"Roberto!" Shadowcat smiled. "Are you ok?"**

**"Thank you all for the rescue but we need to get out of here!" Roberto said, nodding over at the approaching wall of flashing lights on emergency and military vehicles. They hurried towards Roberto's limousine and piled in. Roberto climbed into the driver's seat and slammed his foot onto the gas which sent them speeding off of the tarmac, almost two dozen police and military vehicles in hot pursuit.**

**Peter faced the back window and his eyes flashed as dozens of vehicles in pursuit behind them suddenly had innumerable mechanical difficulties. Then he slumped back, exhausted. "That's my last trick. Quantum has disengaged from the Avery and I'm bringing it in to pick us up outside of the fence." **

**"No problem," Shadowcat said as she firmly placed her hands on the ceiling and floor and focused. She took a deep breath and nodded at Roberto who was driving. He floored the gas pedal and they phased through the fences and police cars outside of them, speeding off at first sixty and then as Shadowcat slipped them further away from the Earth's pull, two hundred miles per hour. They were a mile away before the police could even get a clear look at the phantom limo that had slipped through them like a ghost.**

**Shadowcat collapsed to the floor of the car. Her hands still had a slight emerald glow to them from Channel but she could feel that extra energy both gone and at the same time tingling around in her brain. She'd absorbed something from him, like Rogue would've. This was frightening. She also wasn't quite sure where Channel was anymore. In her? In Quantum? Dissipated? Could he survive without a host? **

**She didn't have time to think about it as M contacted them all telepathically. _Come quickly, Quantum has brought the battle to New York City. _**


	14. Quantum Leap

X-Men: Sanctuary 

**Issue # 14**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

"**Quantum Leap"**

**Sanctuary Base,**

**Australian Outback:**

**Jessica Drew pivoted backwards; she'd been pushing herself hard for close to an hour. Marrow dove in with bone shards in her hands, missing her but narrowly.**

**"You're slowing in the heat, Jessie," Marrow teased.**

**"Overconfident," Jessica murmured and came up inside of Marrow's wide body arc, two quick aikido taps and the shards were dropped. A sharp elbow to her midsection and then the base of her hand to the woman's chin and a quick foot swipe to leave her flat on her ass. Marrow threw her legs up in the air and flipped back onto her feet, less than a second after being knocked down. Her healing powers making this sparring heavily weighed in her favor. The only way for Jessica to stay ahead and unharmed was not to be hit or cut by Marrow.**

**"Nice but old. I let you get that one in," Marrow growled.**

**Jessica shrugged, already in her Tiger Claw crouch. "Whatever. I believe we're even again."**

**"Even," Marrow admitted, "that fluidic style you have makes you a slippery thing."**

**"My bio-electrical powers as Spiderwoman are gone but the agility, the strength, the sense of balance isn't. It's enough to have been recruited by Frost to lead you and Monet," Jessica smiled and picked up her water bottle and towel. The sharp kick to her abdomen came close to breaking a rib if she hadn't of back flipped with it. She landed on one leg, squirting her towel with water and snapping it into Marrow's eyes, blinding her long enough for Jessica to kick her knees from under her then slam a full strength right cross into the woman's chin.**

**Marrow slammed onto her back laughing even as blood came from her mouth. She shook her head and her vision came back almost instantly. "Nasty, bitch. But cute."**

**Jessica hefted her friend to her feet. "I've told you a thousand times that you telegraph on the wind with me. But you never listen."**

**"I'm getting better though? I almost had you this morning?" Marrow asked, picking up her own towel and water and taking a long swallow.**

**"Almost," Jessica acknowledged as dawn crested onto the Sanctuary base. They were half a mile outside of the town center to have privacy.**

**"It's weird being responsible for a group of people again," Sarah admitted. "Since the Morlocks, I never expected..... And Gene Nation, well there was a lot of rage there."**

**"And now?" Jessica asked.**

**"I trust the X-Men, I even like Emma's goals of taking care of mutants and I agree that especially after Genosha they're going to need a focus on security here."**

**"I agree too," Jessica sighed looking at the hundreds of people in Sanctuary being distributed goods and construction equipment by Worthington and Frost employees to build houses. Sanctuary was open twenty four hours now, barely half of the San Madre refugees had new homes constructed. Quick, pre-fab homes like Habitat for Humanity in America but still good with electrical power and air conditioning. It was estimated that all five thousand residents would be housed within another week and half. Then what? Jessica wondered. These people had worked in a sugar factory before, some sort of industry would be needed to employee them all, they couldn't exist on handouts forever.**

**"Looking good, ladies," Cain Marko said as he walked by, his seven foot shadow enveloping them. Jessica tensed slightly then relaxed, their battle had been years ago. And if she could reform as a spy, then why couldn't she afford him the same from his criminal Juggernaut days? Not to mention that Sarah, one of her closest friends in the past year had been a terrorist. **

**Sarah eagerly peeled off the rest of her X uniform, the unstable molecules best for her bone protrusions when exercising but still stifling hot when only half on. Under it she had a sports bra and jogging shorts. "Hey, big guy? How's patrol going?"**

**Cain shrugged his massive shoulders. "No one has gotten out of line, nor has anyone tried to get past the security screen Alex and IT have set up. Emma just got the new Cerebra down here so she's going to set up the psi misdirection field before she leaves."**

**"A shame she has to go," Jessica murmured. "The people trust her and we don't have an active telepath down her to monitor the outskirts. I feel better with a psi eye view as it were."**

**"Yeah," Sarah agreed. "But what you gonna do? X Corp and the Institute are worldwide. We're just a subsidiary down here. A hidden one at that. Emma and Xavier have a lot to manage."**

**"Cain, did you see the data file on the two hundred residents I okayed for training as a private police force here?" Jessica asked.**

**"Yeah, it looks good. You want to start the training classes tomorrow? Alex has the X Security team suits made up, Kevlar and blast proof. What the folks lack in powers with a little basic team work and self defense and body armor, they'll make up for in resilience."**

**"Yes, tomorrow. I don't want to have to arm them with anything but the comm links into IT as well as stun guns. Then we'll start creating outposts at half mile intervals for ten miles surrounding the town. We can use a lot of the buttes as natural guard towers. Alex and I agreed on a perimeter of three miles from the town center for houses to go up in and later this week, we'll need help laying cabling. Building a functioning connected town in less than a month is pushing everyone to their limits but I want to get this into place before you leave, Cain."**

**"No problem, Jess, I'll be walking my circle and back in about three hours," he grinned and strolled off. The rising blistering sun having little to no effect on him, he hadn't even broken a sweat as far as Jessica could remember, though he had visibly tanned like all of them had. **

**IT, the artificial intelligence linked into the Sanctuary main systems popped into view, a shimmering head that reminded Jessica of the Avenger's Vision.**

**"Good morning, Jessica, Sarah. Did your morning sparring session go well?"**

**"Great, light bulb," Sarah grinned then turned down a street towards the apartment she'd chosen for herself. The twon central reserved for the X-Men, staff and control center. Off to the side, the original landing place of San Madre was where they were buildign the civilian town center. Jessica thought it best for both security and a sense of independence.**

**"Well, excuse me," IT said in a slightly miffed tone. Though not "alive" in the most technical sense, IT did have an extensive personality buffer built in to him.**

**"Don't let her get to you, IT. Sarah is more of a warrior than a conversationalist."**

**"Yes, I gathered," IT said dryly. "Onto the days task then?"**

**"Fire away," Jessica nodded and a holographic list and schedule appeared as they headed towards her apartment for her customary shower. She mused to herself that the beauty of IT was that he or it, could follow her anywhere without her feeling self conscious as she would with a human assistant. They got their best work done in the shower. **

**Paris, France:**

**Deep in the Parisian sewers there were catacombs, built supposedly during the time of the Terror as a means of escape for the rich when the poor had rioted. They'd hadn't been used, the rich coming to bloody ends, the creators of the tunnels having their heads rolled down the streets. But Misery had found them when she'd arrived in Paris before the German Occupation. She'd found them by accident, actually, while running from a police squad that had been chasing her. That had been before she was fully aware of her complete nature. She'd been a woman in her late fifties, widowed by two husbands, childless and attacked late one night in an alleyway in Hungary. A decade later she would come to know that it was the vampire king Dracula who had attacked her. The Nazi's having almost cornered and killed him, his encounter with them initially almost his undoing. Her blood had saved him and at the same time somehow tripped a genetic switch within her, releasing her mutant abilities.**

**Immortality extending her life had been tempting at first but as the Nazi's grew in power, the woman who would coin herself Misery had fled to Paris, becoming a torch singer, never believing that the Nazi's would take Paris. Take it they had and she'd almost been caught by the police until she'd fallen through a storm drain into the sewers and then by chance slipped down a small tunnel. She'd found cool catacombs, a veritable treasure of gold secreted away to fund whomever had built them and her Paris base of operations. She'd patiently waited out the war, sealing off and repairing the tunnels until they were memorized and met her needs for safety and if necessary, quick escape.**

**Not a large woman, barely five four, she was an unassuming matriarch as she slowly built her vampiric family, her lined face and short gray hair not at all what people expected of a leader of a vampire house. But she'd taken her time and learned not only her vampiric powers well but also her strange mutant ones. With only a dozen vampires created by her she'd created underground retreats in every major city in Europe in less than twenty five years and populated them with mutant vampire offspring that she kept purposefully drugged and imprisoned until she decided how to use them. She'd considered a reign of terror on the whole of Europe, a new plague but the emergence of superhumans had halted her plans in the late 1950's. It would be a long dragged out war, she sensed to take a continent. So she'd appeased herself to have ten thousand strong, dead and slumbering, barely half a dozen attendants conscious with her at any time. She was patient, she had thousands of years to look forward to, first to see what her first one hundred brought and more importantly how the world changed.**

**And then the Devil found her.**

**"You have your orders, woman. Heed them," Wrath whispered to her in her coffin and Misery awoke, swathed in deep crimson afraid for the first time in seventy-five years. She let her mind reach out to her children and she called them to send reserves home to her in Paris.**

**It was time for the Festival of Mort.**

**New York City:**

**Magneto's reign of terror, or control by mutants hadn't endeared the city to mutants. To superhumans at all. But Quantum wasn't a man who cared about what people thought. He'd been born with a flexibility in his genetic code that allowed him to touch into the flexibility of everything in the universe. Through the intercession of Charles Xavier and complex, illegal drugs taken daily he'd been able to keep that part of his mind shutdown, that psionic attachment to all reality contained. Channel had offered him a way to extend his life, to live as whatever he chose and access his powers at the same time. Shadowcat of the X-Men had done something to Channel, yanked him out but at the same time left parts, fragments of the mutant left within him. Enough to yank energy out of the quantum field and snap it at his offenders. If he was to die this day, he was going to take more than just a President with him, he would raze a city.**

**With a sharp twist of his arms the energy scythe had flown from him, azure energy at the monument, cutting the top third of the Empire State building off and sending it plummeting towards the rush hour crowd of thousand below.**

** M had seen destruction before, on a large scale even but Quantum's cold rage stunned even her mutant boosted intellect. However the logical thing wasn't to falter, it was to act, to help, to serve, to save. In the second it took for his bolt to sear through the floors and begin a topple, M had devised a way to stop it. On a scale of one to ten, she felt herself, a junior telepath a strong six but she screamed with all of her mind to her teammates.**

**_SEND ICEMAN! NOW! NOW! NOW!_**

**"Monet!" they all reacted in sheer shock and pain from the telepathic burst as they boarded the Avery near Newark airport, tens of miles away.**

**_NOW! NOW! NOW! _M wouldn't cease in her demand as she sent images of what she was seeing and then she slowly felt Iceman's thoughts panic and fixate on her mental projection of where she was, a thousand feet about 34th Street. She felt his mind fade from far away and begin to coalesce below her, and then finally fully form. Without hesitating, she bypassed his exhaustion at instantaneous transporting of himself through moisture molecules and she forced her telepathic strength into him so that he would look up and act. Faster, faster, faster.**

**He'd rescued a building in a similar form of destruction before and she saw him speeding up as pure thought, ice expanding to encompass the street below, slamming into the building as a physical wave, wrapping around it in the fist shape he could think of, a giant hand and shoving it back upright. M didn't hesitate anymore, Quantum had crossed the line from being a danger to just the X-Men to being a potential mass murderer. She flew at her top speed at him, grabbing an antenna off of the building he'd just severed and impaled him, her speed carrying them further downtown.**

**She sensed Paulie before she heard him over the comm link and she broke off her attack and an instant later kinetic pulsing bolts smashed Quantum into the lower east side into a small park at the base of Manhattan. The Avery was already nearby, followed by military jets, M could sense. They would have to press the attack, Quantum had already ripped free the impaling metal and was almost completely healed. **

**Paulie slammed into Quantum like an errant meteor, and was immediately on his feet brutally pummeling the man. Lefts, rights, uppercuts that left him kneeling, seemingly beaten.**

**"Stay down, bitch!" Paulie warned and then actually blanched as Quantum rose up and grabbed Paulie by the throat in a grip that flashing kinetic blasts and more blows couldn't break.**

**"The power borrowing mutant thug again, eh?" Quantum chuckled, not even a bruise on him. "From that fighting style I would say you were a Marine, no? Pissant. Do you have any concept of how many Marines I've killed in the past twenty years? I've crawled and killed through every backwater shit hole country on this planet. Twice!"**

**Quantum calmly reached over and broke Paulie's forearm.**

**"Your flesh radiates an aura, you know? Supposedly it makes you invulnerable and yet I actually manipulate that aura. Do you understand that, jarhead? Do you understand that I negate that which you strike me with? And these pathetic gauntlets, you don't even have a concept of how to truly use them to manipulate energy. Force bolts and flying? Juvenile. They don't even look human built from the inside. I can see them from the inside you know. Have you been traveling across the stars, Xavier pup?"**

**Paulie was actually barely conscious, the intense pain and lack of oxygen bringing him close to blacking out but he heard whispers of the last of Quantum's threats. He heard him talking about the gauntlets and Paulie knew that there was something to be used there. With one last focused thought, he thought of the sizzling blue energy the gauntlets gave off and instead of just thinking a blast, he thought needles, fine needles. He thought about them as small as he could envision and more importantly he thought about them containing energy, containing a small payload bomb within. Thousands of energy needles surged from the gauntlets into Quantum.**

**"What---?!" Quantum was surprised but immediately looked at negating and controlling the energy, it was the internal explosion that he wasn't prepared for. Paulie was hurled away almost a hundred feet by the energy released from inside Quantum who looked deeply hurt, staggered on one knee.**

**"You may be indestructible but we've noticed even you have needs!" Northstar said as he dove down and around Quantum at superspeed, drawing out the oxygen so fast that there was a complete stillness around the man. Quantum reached out to grab or blast Northstar, trying to focus on the mutants bio-energy signature when the heat of the sun itself seemed to slice into him from above. For all the power that he could focus outward, that he could manipulate externally to his body, Quantum was still limited by his flesh. He was still human.**

**"Not yet, Quantum, we aren't done with you!" Sunspot shouted from above, pouring energy down into the funnel Northstar was creating. Without the buffer of oxygen, the heat quadrupled in temperature, threatening to destroy Northstar when suddenly Paulie's energy field extended around the impromptu prison they'd created. "The two of you thought it was funny keeping me prisoner while you plotted in front of me. Using my body like a plaything! Well now it's time to feel my wrath!" Sunspot raged, his anger at being possesses by Channel finally being vented.**

**"Good to see you caught on! Though I suspect Sunspot will be in dire need of therapy after this," Northstar said over his comm link and Paulie merely grunted, he'd ripped his jacket into a sling to support his arm and he was still seeing spots but the threat of Quantum, the damage the man had done was too great to allow pain to slow him down.**

**"And now the coup de grace!" Sunspot screamed and flew off as a silver shard of energy appeared next to him and then shot down into the funnel.**

**"Close the field, Paulie!" M shouted, coordinating the attack telepathically.**

**"Done!" Paulie said and Quantum was suddenly trapped inside of a column with swirling ice and snow within. He was screaming and raging but finally he fell to the ground, M sensing the brightness of his thoughts receding.**

**"I think we successfully overloaded him," Bobby said a moment later, having reformed in human form outside of the force field. "We better have. I can't do that again."**

**"His thoughts are close to human and hurt," M reported. "Without Channel he can't safely access the totality of his powers." **

**_Then I'll have to do it unsafely, girl_! Quantum raged to her mentally. **

**Before M could warn anyone of the thought she felt from Quantum below, energy exploded from him and almost ten blocks around him and the East River exploded. The X-Men were able to instinctively flee upwards but Quantum's energy wave was barely any higher then him in height. Yet it was deadlier than a knife through paper. It fanned out in front of him, like a solid thing, a solid thing with a razors edge. Shearing through cars, people, first floors of buildings----anything within a height of under seven feet was suddenly disintegrated. M felt the wave of the telepathic backlash of several thousand people dying, of buildings, residential, commercial, stores, restaurants, hospitals, schools, crumbling with their first floors, part of their structural foundation, suddenly gone. She felt Paulie snatch her out of the air and realized she'd been plummeting towards the cutting energy below, having forgotten to fly she'd been so open telepathically, the brunt of death striking her so deeply. She was amazed that Paulie was holding an equally horrified Bobby. Paulie had leapt into the air with him like it had been an energy bolt attack, no one could've expected it was a cutting scythe of pure power. That he could expand it even larger than he had to shear off the Empire State Building. This seemed to have been blocks in magnitude and scope.**

**"He can't control himself, Paulie!" M shrieked as she saw the East River fill violently into the crater that had been the park and ten blocks of the lower east side, Quantum now submerged in the water. "He's building to do it again, to lash out even greater!"**

**"Hold still!" Bobby shouted at Paulie and waves of ice crashed down onto Quantum, the incredible heat instantly melting the ice but Bobby kept pouring it on, drawing from the East River itself to bury Quantum, to create a massive lake where the park, the lower east side had been. It wasn't enough to stop Quantum, Bobby knew but it would slow him down as he required oxygen like everyone else.**

**"Can you fly?" Paulie asked M, horrified as he saw the devastation below, it looked like a bomb had gone off and simply disintegrated everything except for the water, the crater was barely ten feet deep. Quantum's energy seemed to be like a knife, buildings had literally been cut off at their figurative knees. "Hold on, Bobby, I'm gonna climb high as I can, we can't be this close!"**

**"Dear God," Shadowcat murmured over the comm link. "Northstar, Sunspot, help the people! Now! Forget about Quantum!"**

**Paulie caught sight of Northstar and Sunspot flying in an arc out of the sky into the collapsed wreckages, into the screams and fires and devastation hoping to help in some way. A minute or so later it was obvious they were too late and flew back up. But it was all collapsing buildings, screams, no one to be rescued, only death witnessed.**

**"P-paulie?" Shadowcat called out over the comm link, unable to believe her eyes as buildings crumbled, almost of hundred of them all at once. It was too staggering to comprehend.**

**"I'm here. I have Monet and Bobby. She's barely conscious. I think she got a head whammy from all the----all the death," Paulie choked, flying higher and higher to evade the mushroom cloud of debris and dirt. He could make out the sleek Shi'ar designed Avery almost a two thousand feet above him, Northstar and Sunspot closer to it, being more agile in the air.**

**"I'm better," M said though there were tears streaking down her face and she pushed away from him, able to fly on her own. "Shadowcat----what do we do?"**

**Shadowcat was biting hard on her lip in the Avery two thousand feet above, a full view of the devastation below. "M, get a telepathic lock on Quantum in the water. Is he still alive?"**

**"Yes," M answered. "His mind is like looking into a bright flare. I can't attack it or shut it down. What do you want me to do?"**

**"Guide me in!" Shadowcat said as she dove through the floor of the Avery and phased until her body sped up fast enough to shoot her down at the churning water, ice and debris maelstrom. She didn't even break the water, phasing through it and then sharply changing her trajectory until she came upon Quantum who was in a geyser of superheated water. Shadowcat knew she only had seconds before she was affected, even in her intangible state so she streaked into the bubbling mess and phase din Quantum again.**

**Again she was in the void within him but this time she was on her knees next to Channel who was on his knees as well. He looked at her in both disgust and revulsion.**

**"It seems, my dear that we are cut from the same cloth. Perhaps I am the ultimate expression of your intangibility," he choked.**

**"No time for that, Channel. You merged with me when I yanked you out of here and were just energy for me to manipulate but Quantum literally _needs_ you. Thousands are dead because he can't control his powers without you," Shadowcat choked, she felt like she'd been through a marathon separating from Channel.**

**"You are offering a truce?" Channel chuckled.**

**"I can't allow more people to die. I can't, Channel. Help him before he explodes again!" Shadowcat screamed.**

**"My presence, brings him balance. His power literally isn't strong enough for only one mind. That's what Xavier discovered. That he would have to transplant another mind, a symbiotic one into Quantum to regulate him. I've had time to marshal myself to integration with other beings. It is my nature. But what of you, Katherine? It is Katherine, isn't it? I saw your file while perusing Xavier's," Channel chuckled.**

**"What of me what?" Shadowcat demanded.**

**"Did you know that you were sought out and brought into the fold with your advanced intellect, taught languages, taught to fight and survive, taught to have an indomitable will so that you would advance to my state? So that Xavier could merge you into Quantum?" Channel laughed uproariously. "Oh, come now, think about it for a moment. Do you think it's coincidence that we're so alike? I'm merely the failed prototype of you. You're younger, stronger, you nearly consumed me by accident. When the time came to control Quantum, if requested by Xavier with the balance of potentially cities, you would've merged, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?"**

**_KITTY! KITTY!_ M telepathically screamed. _Get out now, he's shifting, he's shifting and vanishing, I can barely feel you at all!_**

Shadowcat looked into the twisted face of Channel and saw evil and the truth in his eyes and she screamed out as she forced herself from Quantum, threw herself back out and appeared as Quantum vanished, hundreds of feet underwater, solid and exhausted. She felt water rush into her lungs and panicked, thinking it impossible for her to drown, her natural state was intangible. Something had happened, negated her powers, the strain of being in Quantum as he vanished? She tried to reason it out even as her vision got darker and she realized that she was too far down to even try to swim. She was violently knocked by debris, and she thought that perhaps it was for the best. It was for the best that she die with the truth of the X-Men, of Xavier's plans in her. She saw a flash of light, a sparkling jewel over an eye and then she thought about joining her father who was deadin wherever he was at. She thought about how proud he would be that she at least tried to save people.

**Her eyes fluttered open and Paulie's wet face, dripping hair was pulling away from, her lips felt bruised from his. He was covered in dirt and soot.**

**"CPR," he whispered and she nodded as she choked up water, they were on the other side of the river in Brooklyn. M was next to him, equally as messy and looking so deeply haggard and drawn, like she'd been grieving for years. But over her right eye was a telepathic diamond energy signature, the jewel Shadowcat had seen as darkness had taken over her. M blushed, catching the errant thought. "What else would I have as my signature? Diamonds are a girls' best friend."**

**"How?" Shadowcat wondered aloud, trying to breathe, spit up the last of the water and giggle at M.**

**"Your mind is generally slippery when you're phased, suddenly it "popped" brightly into my minds eye. So I knew you were solid. I directed Paulie to you as I shut down your autonomic functions so that you wouldn't lose anymore oxygen. Don't try to move too fast. I seized almost all of your muscles to keep them oxygenated, to keep your brain oxygen frozen. It took Paulie almost a minute to find you in the debris down there," M explained and Shadowcat clasped her hand tightly.**

**"Thanks," Shadowcat said as she followed M's line of sight to across the river where there were plumes of fire and smoke and a visible gash on the Manhattan coast line. "My God."**

**"Northstar and Sunspot have been going back in, finding some people, pulling out hundreds. But we can't stay here, I'm sensing a heavy military contingent moving in. I think the SHIELD hellicarrier or something big is happening. The military is going insane from 9/11. And the President, they think it's Magneto or worse," Paulie said frantically. "There are jets flying in from everywhere. They've got tactical nukes. They will burn us and sort it out later."**

**"Peter?" Shadowcat choked. **

**"The Avery is invisible for now and about a thousand feet over there, we can't help anymore, Kitty, we have to get out of here. To the Institute---,"M choked, tears streaking her face.**

**"NO! Not the Institute!" Shadowcat choked, clutching both Paulie and M, she saw the fear and confusion in their faces and shook her head. "Too dangerous. Call in Northstar and Sunspot; we have to begin immediately tracking Quantum. We can't let him get away."**

**M looked at her strangely and just as Shadowcat felt a slight telepathic touch from the young woman, she focused and went intangible. Her thoughts had to remain mercurial. They had to remain her own.**

**_What are you hiding, Shadowcat_? M asked her.**

**_Not here. Not no_w, Shadowcat answered.**

**Madrid, Spain:**

**Slowly the doors opened into Carlos' penthouse on the top three floors of Allegra Industries and a short green skinned alien Skrull in dark slacks and a dark turtleneck smiled politely at the X-Men.**

**"This is Ng. He manages the apartment and my businesses while I'm away," Carlos introduced casually.**

**"A Skrull?" Cal'syee, wrapped in a hooded cloak sneered.**

**"Only when alone," Ng answered with a slight Asian accent and then shapeshifted into first a replica of Carlos and then a shorter, slim Chinese man in his late fifties. "I am who I need to be."**

**Warren, Johanna and Cal'syee all saw the immediate value in such an employee and servant as Carlos led them through the foyer into an enormous library. "Ng helps me maintain my presence as well as is aware of my mutation. His abilities and long lifespan make him the perfect assistant."**

**"Do I even want to know how you have a Skrull manservant?" Warren chuckled.**

**"Long story. Ng, we're going to be doing magic in the library, no disturbances," Carlos called out over his shoulder. "It may bring about guests. It may not."**

**"Understood. Shall I prepare a light meal?" Ng asked, quickly gathering everyone's coats.**

**"Yes, though we may be going right back out. Everyone's bags are in the cars downstairs, prepare the rooms for at least four more guests. I gave them the address and I downloaded their faces and names to your PDA for security clearance," Carlos said quickly as the four X-Men went into the library and he closed the door behind them.**

**"Move the couches, please," Carlos instructed as he went to several packed shelves and began pulling out books and old tomes. The three X-Men silently did as he said and Carlos immediately walked in a circle in the immense room. Almost a full twenty feet circle in diameter, which still left room for dozens of twenty foot high bookcases, packed with books. Behind his footsteps a slow light trail appeared until there was a soft glow from the circle he'd walked. We have to hurry and perform this magic ritual. I'm not as seasoned at this as I would like to be but I think I can do what Bissou suggested." **

**"Your Barnes and Noble discount must be impressive," Johanna whistled, there were at least twenty thousand books lining the shelves that rose **

**He chuckled at their staring at his magic and the books in the library that clearly went all the way up the entirety of the three floors to a sky light. "What else would an immortal do but read?"**

**"I feel something," Cal'syee said, twitching her head.**

**"Me too," Warren said.**

**"I don't," Johanna shrugged. "Ok, a little creeped out from all the magic. But I don't feel anything."**

**"It's the psi link," Carlos said. "Like Talisman has created a power place at the Sanctuary base, this is mine. Not nearly as strong or powerful as hers, it should accomplish our goal. I couldn't have done this is Paris. Warren, place the axe in the center of the floor. The two of you now have an affinity to my magicks because of the link."**

**Warren drew Marat's axe from a leather carrying case and set it on the floor.**

**"Link hands," Carlos said and he, Warren and Cal'syee formed a smaller circle around the axe. "Johanna, you'll act as our protector and anchor. Understood?"**

**"Yes," she nodded within the larger circle but not the smaller one. "Protector against what?"**

**Carlos had casually tossed several books within the glowing circle and now they were floating open and flipping open to certain pages. "I don't know where Danielle is or what she may be encountering. Plus my wards are----strong here. If we're attacked or subverted, try to make sure our inner circle isn't disrupted until I end it. Cal'syee, through us, feel for Danielle," Carlos instructed.**

**"Where?" she asked, confused. "I do not know magic, especially human magic, Carlos. I do not even know the woman we seek except from the link she has to you two and now to me. You're asking me to hunt prey I have no full concept of in a milieu I know nothing of."**

**Carlos nodded, understanding her frustration. He thought for a quiet moment then spoke. "Think of the axe as having her scent, if you will. Think your predatory senses at it, I'll guide you through the rapport to make the leap to see it."**

**"Fine," she closed her eyes then opened them again, a fierce look on her face, her teeth slightly bearing as she peered deeper at the axe.**

**Johanna noticed that Carlos was glowing slightly but Warren's features were slightly similar to Deathbird's, as if he were mimicking her powers. Then the axe began to glow slightly and spin on the ground. She was beginning to see that this psi link clique within the team had a possibility of a dark side. What if suddenly someone pulled all of their strings? You could turn half of the squad against the other with little to no effort. **

**"Nightcrawler, I can see how it touched him. His blood is on it. Not a lot, not enough to kill. It cleaves through time and space," Cal'syee grunted. "It burns under my eyes."**

**"I see her!" Warren shouted suddenly, though now his eyes were closed. "She's alive. Walking. DANIELLE!!"**

**"Hold the vision, Warren. Hold it! Don't take your mind's eye off of her!" Carlos barked. "Deathbird, feel me in the rapport, think of moving my hand onto Danielle, as if she were in front of us."**

**"Yes," Deathbird grunted. Her arm slowly lifting his as if directing his hand, the glow from the axe grew greater and greater and then there was a flash of intense light.**

**"Guys, is that you?" Danielle shrieked overjoyed from seemingly all around them. "What is that animal with you?! It's like a hawk but a person, a real person. It feels like an animal, like my rapport with animals. But it feels even more intense." **

**"Yes! Don't be afraid. Yes, there's a new person in the rapport. That's her intensity. We needed her to pinpoint you. She's sensed you down far better than either of us could. Don't move, I'm moving closer to you," Carlos yelled. "It takes time to do this!"**

**"Wow," Johanna murmured, it reminded her of the movie Poltergeist with a blinding slice in reality hovering over the axe and Dani's voice form all around. This was some incredible stuff she thought to herself then she heard a crashing sound from outside of the library doors. She was about to say something when another flash of light happened and image of Danielle appeared from the axe, intangible but clearly Psyche in animal skin top and loin cloth chaps.**

**"Johanna, you'll have to hold off our assailants for only a few brief minutes. Don't seriously harm them!" Carlos instructed.**

**"What----?!" Johanna was confused.**

**"Carlos, what's going on? I can feel through the rapport that you're expecting trouble, expecting this attack!" Warren said.**

**Suddenly the library doors shattered black clad heavily armed and masked shock troopers stood with rifles pointed. Half dropped to one knee, rifles aimed at the circle. One of them was holding an unconscious and badly beaten Ng.**

**"On my count!" one of the shock troopers barked, not even hesitating.**

**"Who the hell is that?!" Psyche said as if physically present.**

**"Johanna! Now! Stop them!" Carlos barked but Frenzy was already snatching off her jacket to reveal her X uniform, in particular the body armor to act as a protection and was already charging across the room at them. A dozen shots of bullets and laser fire rang out and Frenzy extended her arms wide, taking in all of the shots as she slammed at full speed into the shock troopers. Send the lot of them back into the outer area. She didn't hesitate as she used one to bat the others back and then shoved four to the far side of the apartment. There were twenty more inthe vestibule, loading weapons and surprised that it was her and not Carlos that had come crashing out. Or perhaps they were expectign a demon.**

**Frenzy grabbed an armoire in the hallway and used it as a battering ram to shove back more of them, plasma blasts begin to sting against her flesh. They must've increased the voltage. She got the definite feelign that these were consummate professionals as they rolled out of the way of her barrage and formed a defensive line, opening fire in stages rather than all at once.**

**"I'm not getting an infection reading off of her!" one of them yelled.**

**"She might be a thrall! Incapcitate!" another ordered. Frenzy turned just in time to see the grenade launcher fire at her, the explosive hitting her in the chest and sending her sailing into the living room area. She looked up, laying on her back, more stunned than hurt and saw the wall to ceiling windows crashing in as more troopers invaded.**

**What the hell was going on? Frenzy wondered.**

**"Ah! Blood!" Deathbird shrieked, snatching her hands free as she took to the air, spreading her wings and flying towards the troopers that Frenzy had tumbling back outside of the library.**

**"Dammit!" Carlos snapped, grabbing the handle of the axe. "I've almost got Danielle! That fool can't control her bloodlust!"**

**Deathbird swooped into the hallway in time to see Frenzy pushing several troopers back. **

**"She's infected!" a trooper yelled next to Deathbird and she viciously lashed out at his throat with her claws. Another one open fired on her and she spun in midair, feet over head and brought the full force of her weight down into his chest. Two more charged at her,m thinking that she was low enough to pull out of the air and she let one of her javelins snap out of her wrist holders through the stomach of one and into the chest of the one behind him. Both men were shocked at first and then horrified as she used her enhanced strength to lift them both and fire bio-electrical energy at half a dozen more troopers fromt he tip of the javelin. She laughed with glee as she kicked the two bodies off of her javelin and slashed the chest of another trooper.**

**Frenzy suddenly exploded in the other diretion and Deathbird squealed excitedly, more target for her without having to consider an ally in the way. She brought out her second javelin and opened fire on the men ahead of her not even aware of three lining up behind her. The plasma burst caught her square in the back and she crumpled to the floor. One of the troopers leapt onto her, pulled out his bowie knife and raised it to slit her throat.**

**Warren pulled the seemingly oblivious Carlos down to his knees as gunfire went above where their heads had been. Warren noticed that tables and chairs were being shattered by bullets but that the bullets bounced off of the books floating and shelved. There seemed to be some sort of force field inherent in them. He could use that he thought as he pulled Carlos behind the floating books, a temporary shield.**

**Dani crouched down instinctively as almost a dozen shock troopers crashed into the library through the skylight. Frenzy and Deathbird had slammed the first group back out of the library but the ones rappelling down were already taking aim as they slid in.**

**"I've got the airborne ones!" Warren shouted. He took Carlos' hand in his and put it around the axe handle and then from perfect musculature and nearly hollow bones leapt fifteen feet into the air, grabbing onto the ropes. Though the troopers had the advantage of weapons, Warren was able to yank his way into them, striking at whoever he pleased while using the ropes to yank himself above crossfire. He would swing into one, use the momentum of that to push off into another and then the walls themselves to maintain the speedy bouncing he'd created. Used to aerial dynamics, he didn't lose his balance or perspective as he slammed from one to the other, finally able to snatch a gun away and open fire at the rest coming in from above. **

**It did cross his mind that this would've been a lot easier if he still had his wings, but he'd spent so much time working on acrobatic routines with his wings that it was child's play for him to swing above and around them, sending several crashing to the ground unconscious and causing several more to shoot each other. **

**"Carlos, can you do this?" Danielle asked, she could feel herself slowly becoming more and more solid but she feared that the strain was killing Carlos, she could see blood coursing from cuts throughout his face and arms as the energy seemed to rip at his body.**

**"Shush, woman!" Carlos snapped and dipped his mind deeper into the wards around his inner sanctum, calling upon decades of layered power to hold on to her essence and draw it through with her body.**

**"Carlos!" Warren shrieked from above, a trooper had gotten by him, landed and drawn a Bowie knife to impale the Spaniard from behind. **

**"No!" Danielle screamed, created and hurled a psionic arrow into the man over Carlos' shoulder sending him flying back unconscious.**

**"Woman! I can't do this if you charge energy through too!" Carlos said through gritted teeth.**

**"I just saved your life!" Dani defended hotly, slightly amazed that she'd been able to throw a psionic arrow at what was from her perspective an illusion surrounding her as the barren desert she was in slowly faded and the library became more and more real.**

**"Who are these people? What's going on?" Danielle demanded.**

**"They are my personal guard!" Carlos said through gritted teeth. "They are assassins responsible for stopping me from performing magicks."**

**"What?!" Danielle recoiled slightly, feeling the truth through their link. It was bad enough the intense sense of----viciousness she was feeling from Deathbird as that woman's bloodlust and thrill of battle seeped slowly into the link with her. Then she understood, this was his inner sanctum and his magicks weren't inherent like Talisman's. His belonged to the entity inside of him, he'd installed guards around this place if such intense magic were used expecting that it would be the monster inside of him ripping it's way free which is what she sensed was happening right now.**

**Then Danielle felt another presence. And she knew the shit had truly hit the fan.**

**Marat grabbed a fist full of her unbraided hair from behind, his foot slamming into her back to try and drag her back through the dimensional rift.**

**"She is mine!" Marat roared.**

**"Not today, buddy!" Warren hollered, swinging down from above and slamming into Marat as both he and Danielle materialized in the library. Danielle fell forward into Carlos, feeling a good chunk of hair rip out into Marat's hand and more troopers dropped down from the skylight. She scrambled across the floor, not hesitating to snatch up a dropped Mac 10 and opening fire at the men above, sending several of them falling behind far desks and furniture. They had the benefit of body armor to protect them from her shots but in deerskin loin cloths she didn't. She grabbed the unconscious Carlos by the jacket and dragged him behind a table.**

**Warren didn't have time to land a second blow as Marat rolled easily, slamming into him and then casually tossed Warren's light body out of the library into the melee outisde. **

**Warren folded his body into a ball and then a a flying kick as he slammed into the trooper about to slit Deathbird's throat. He skidded to to his feet in front of her, snatched up her javelins and twirled them in his hands as several troopers surrounded him.**

**"This one is tainted as well," one of the black helmeted men said.**

**"It's not what you think," Warren tried to reason btu they charged forward anyway. He spun aside, first using the javelins as clubs and then when it became obvious that they had more vicious intent he let his mind seep into Deathbird's groggy one and found the finger coding sequence for the blasters in the javelins. He touched the tips and a blast lashed out knocking out eight of troopers to the ground. There was an explosion behind him and Warren whirled around, two troopers falling behind him, Ng standing behind them with a blaster.**

**"I didn't have time to warn you," Ng shrugged.**

**"Uhhhhh, yeah? Does this happen often? These men attacking?"**

**"These are an elite core or assassins trained over decades to kill Master Carlos should the Beast run free. The magical infusions with you and several of yoru compatriots makes you targets as well. You've been infected," Ng explained calmly, still in the form of a slim middle aged Asian man but he seemed stronger as he helped deathbird to her feet.**

**"Get off me, Skrul!" she hissed and snatched her javelins away from Warren. "What kind of leader are you? You dont' even have any abilities!"**

**"I saved your miserable hide!" Warren defended.**

**"By picking through my thoughts! Stay out of my mind, mutant or I'll cut you out of the rapport!" she growled swiping her javelin at him.**

**"It is an agreeable joining then, I see," Ng said sardonically.**

**"If Allegra uses his magicks then these bastards attack?" Deathbird asked.**

**"Precisely. Actually I think it would deend upon the intensity of his magicks, a margin for usage but a difference in wattage, if you will," Ng shrugged. "He must care considerably for the young woman he was bringing through."**

**Deathbird grinned as she felt Warren's jealousy through the rapport. "Skrull, she is Allegra's heart and soul, he loves her dearly."**

**Warren bristled for an instant and then they heard glass shattering in the room and Frenzy roar angrily.**

**"How many of these assassins are there?" Warren asked Ng.**

**"Mr. Allegra maintains a compliment of one thousand at all times. This entire building is mobilizing to end the threat as they perceive it in the library."**

**"Ng, Deathbird, disable the elevators, I'll go help Frenzy. Until we can straighten out this mess we still have Marat to deal with! The Beast isn't going anywhere or a threat at the moment! Go!"**

**Marat jumped up to face Danielle when he felt something creeping up his flesh. It was blood, living blood that some sort of entity was within. Energy and blood seeped into his pores, energized by the mystical circle he stood within and Marat roared angrily.**

**"No!" Danielle screamed, realizing that the psionic energy shift she felt was the Beast entering Marat gleefully. Marat looked back at her, his eyes a blazing crimson and then a dozen troopers charged at him only to be viciously ripped apart by his bare hands and swinging axe. Marat stalked towards Danielle and fell back on his haunches the glowing outer circle smashing him backwards.**

**"The spell circle was to keep the Beast in," Carlos muttered weakly, watching. "I didn't think it would be able to leave me. That it would find what it wanted in the circle. An immortal. It's left me, Danielle. It's left me for Marat!"**

**Marat raised his axe and smashed at the circle shield, cracks in energy appearing in mid-air.**

**"Carlos, you might want to do something before he gets free! Now!" Danielle said as her psi bow and arrow appeared. She knew that against Marat they were barely effective, it would be a joke to a possessed Marat but it was their last line of defense when the circle shield cracked.**

**"I'm trying!" Carlos said and violently jerked out his hand but instead of a book from the shelf flying into it, the book dropped to the floor. "Dammit! It enhanced me so much," Carlos said as he got weakly to his feet and ran over to the dropped book outside of the circle. There was more and more gunshots from outside of the library in the apartment and Danielle got psi glimpses of Warren, Deathbird and Frenzy fighting a desperate vicious fight against dozens of troopers.**

**"How many of these commandoes are on duty to stop this thing?' Danielle shouted at Carlos.**

**"Two hundred on five minute call, with eight hundred more being called in. They all wear specially created amulets that focuses them on the Beast so they won't try to kill me directly anymore but they will continue to fight to get in here to kill Marat."**

**"Ironic, no!?" Marat roared, his voice a deeper baritone as his final swing shattered the circle shield and he charged at Carlos and Danielle. **

**"This is never a good thing," Danielle grunted, shoving Carlos to the ground firing a psi arrow point blank into Marat's skull. It was enough to stop him in his tracks, shrieking as if scalded with hot water.**

**Carlos began shouting an incantation and the glowing circle seemed to coalesce into shattered shards of energy that slammed into Marat from behind and smashed him through the far walls and windows. **

**"Impressive," Danielle sighed as they ran to the hole and saw Marat laying unconscious on a rooftop across the way, fifteen stories below.**

**"The Beast is encased in the circle _within_ Marat but we still have Marat to deal with," Carlos said weakly, then swirled his hand in the air as he grabbed her waist and the winds built up until they were swept out of the building and then landed safely on the rooftop below.**

**"Impressive, again," Dani said.**

**"I can do a lot in there," Carlos smirked nodding up at this penthouse which had a gaping hole in it.**

**Marat turned and stood, clutching his axe. "That thing is no longer in control within me but it whispers to me!"**

**"Marat, let us help you. That thing in you is by accident!" Dani said calmly, raising her hand in peace.**

**"Bah!" Marat snapped, waving his axe threatening at her. "It says things to me. Things that suggest greater possibilities!"**

**"Do not listen!" Carlos warned. "It's trying to twist you!"**

**Marat growled and charged towards them with his axe but was blasted backwards and over the rooftop by Deathbird's javelins. She dove down after Marat and Carlos and Dani ran to the edge of the rooftop that he'd fallen over. Deathbird swooped back up, her wings spread wide.**

**"He's gone! How could he be!? I had him in my sights for all but a second!' Deathbird shrieked angrily.**

**"Marat can teleport with his axe. It's his favorite mode of transportation," Dani explained. **

**"Marat is not psionically strong enough to keep the spell within him solid like I have for years. The Beast will free itself soon," Carlos said grimly. "We have to find him."**

**"You have greater concerns, Agent of the Beast!" a shock trooper screamed from a squad of helicopters that were approaching.**

**"What is he saying?" Dani demanded of Carlos.**

**Carlos shook his head. "The blood shared by us all, it contains portions**

of the Beast. The blessed amulets allow them to see now visage but the taint of the Beast. All in the rapport, all connected by the drops of blood are now to be terminated."

**"_Your_ agents will kill you!" Deathbird half laughed. "And the rest of us for being connected to you?"**

**"Nice to see you've recruited the sane ones in my absence," Danielle grunted.**

**Four Seasons,**

**Paris, France:**

**"By the Gods!" Amara balked at the television, live feeds from New York on all the stations. Shan and Raphael stood next to her with Nemesis staring silently from a far corner.**

**"First Magneto's reign of terror and now this. They have pictures of this flying man, the one Channel must've possessed but luckily none of the X-Men. We should contact Kitty's team, see that they're safe," Shan said and went to her portable laptop and tried to comm link with the Avery.**

**"Are they alive?" Amara asked desperately, clutching Shan's shoulders. "Gods, let them be alive!"**

**"I'm still picking up the Avery's link as open which means the ship wasn't destroyed and now it's gone to stealth mode. Shadowcat has also shut down all communications with her team, she's gone to something called sh'nar po'tol or loose translation: "Running Black". Does anyone know what it means?" Shan asked desperately.**

**"It's from the Shi'ar computers. I saw it while helping to navigate Ari's ship. It means they're in pursuit of the enemy but may be considered the enemy themselves," Nemesis offered, "so to not seek them out."**

**"Kitty knows that only those of us affiliated with the teams or Xavier would have access to anything Shi'ar. They must in pursuit of Channel. I fought Channel, I had no idea that he was capable of such devastation. He must've possessed a mutant of immense power," Amara shook her head. "My friends, our enemies are making this world terrified of us. Between Magneto and now Channel, there must be at least forty, maybe fifty thousand dead!"**

**They all looked somberly at the death toll numbers at the base of the TV screen, the news services were linked into the Census Bureau and updating the numbers every minute. Ten blocks in three directions having been in the blast, so many buildings having crumbled that the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges were all in structural danger as well, the very bedrock of the lower right side of Manhattan seemingly hit by a fist. There were frantic questions about whether to evaluate the whole island as it had been plunged into near hysteria.**

**"Is this what it means to be a mutant?" Raphael whispered, tears streaking his face. "I can feel the pain all the way over here. It's like a wave of anguish coming across the water."**

**Raphael's head cocked to the side and his tone changed, obviously Tran speaking now. "The boy his highly empathic and sensitive to the world, I think that's why Holy Mother used him. I'm trying to calm him down."**

**"Good," Amara nodded, slightly freaked out by talking to two distinct people within one person. "We're to go to this Misery's nightclub in a few hours. We can't be weakened by him or even by what's happened in New York. It almost makes it more imperative that we stop Misery before it looks as if mutants have declared war on the planet."**

**Nemesis stepped closer to the television. "Amara, they have declared war. We're just triage at this point. Picking up the scattered pieces of flesh and victims." **

**New York City:**

**Kitty phased back through an alley way wall as she heard footsteps turning the corner and come closer to her.**

**"I am here," the deep voice said in a slight accent and Kitty phased back into view.**

**Storm wearing a dark coat and hood stood calmly waiting. Her eyes though were full of a smile but her face showed concern. "I got your message through Sage's private network. We were surprised to hear from you; according to Xavier's network you've gone under deep cover to capture the mutant responsible for the destruction of lower Manhattan."**

**"Yes, that's what I said to Xavier's. I said it for a reason," Kitty said grimly and explained her discovery of the Xavier Control files and Channels' confirmation of them as well as Xavier's knowledge of Quantum.**

**Storm listened quietly but Kitty could see her thinking about all the permutations of this, all the problems it created. "You believe both your sources and Channel?"**

**"Unfortunately it all checks out. My squad is under wraps here in New York until we locate Quantum then we're back after him but----well, Xavier has been, may have been subtly controlling us all."**

**Storm considered it slowly. There was a hesitation and then a grim acceptance. "It does make sense. A twisted, dark sense but sense all the same. This will rip the X-men apart, Kitty. Some might even say it would be better to kill you here and now than allow this to become public, especially after Genosha, Magneto's attack on New York and now Quantum's. Xavier is more than just our teacher now, he to many mutants is the messiah. People do not like their messiah's clay feet and tend to blame those who point it out rather than deal with the true issue. Are youwilling to die for pointing out Xavier's? At my hands? At the hands of countless others?"**

**There was a fierce determination in Storm's eyes that Kitty tensed slightly. Had she walked into a trap, was her oldest friend and comrade her enemy now?**

**Kitty nodded. "Then I'd prefer it was you and her." She glanced up at the rooftop across the street where the X-Man Sage had a scope rifle trained on Kitty.**

**Storm was silent for a long moment then held out her hand and Kitty gave her a cd with the information on it.**

**"Everyone deserves to know the truth and make their decisions for themselves," Kitty shrugged.**

**"Agreed. Be careful, Kitten, these are dark and dangerous times. Especially for leaders," Storm walked closer and hugged her. "Do whatever you have to do to protect your team and stay true to your own integrity. You have an ally in me in whatever shall come to pass."**

**"I will. Thank you. I was so...scared and angry and then this whole Quantum mess. It's so horrible," Kitty half sobbed.**

**"Be strong, Kitten. The changes we make in our lifetimes will not bear fruit in the days we see but perhaps in the days our children see. I will study this information and disperse it slowly, to those who can handle the truth. And then we'll deal with Xavier one day." **

**"Thanks again."**

**Storm smiled then soared up into the sky. Kitty looked at the rooftop, Sage was gone as well. She wondered for a second what the signal had been to possibly shoot her and then she phased back through the ground, worried that she suspected everyone of anything now. **

**Bobby sat up in his bed, covered in sweat and Jean Paul grabbed his shoulders. **

**"I thought we agreed you would sleep?"**

**"We should get back out there. Help the City," Boobby murmured weakly, he was suffering from massive dehydration an after effect of using so much power.**

**"Shadowcat, barely old enough to buy us a drink, God help us, is our leader. And she is correct in her estimations that there is nothing we can do but track down Channel and Quantum and prevent this from happening again."**

**"We've been holed up in this brownstone while a mile away the biggest evacuation of dead bodies on American soil is going on," Bobby leaned back agains the wall staring at his teammate who always seemed so blaise about damn near everything.**

**"At least your President isn't dead," Jean Paul smirked. "Well, perhaps that might go against his opposing parties thoughts."**

**"The Vice president is dead though. That's not a good thing. Quantum blew up Air Force One, the fact that the Vice President was on board is a stroke of dark luck but this country is still reeling. The anti-mutant hysteria is going to only get worse."**

**"Yes, and here we are in this crowded little house listening to sirens going by and wondering when will they come through the door after us, non?" Jean Paul chuckled. "How Anne Frank of us."**

**"Are you always this sarcastic?" Bobby grimaced. "Where's your heart?" **

**"I do feel, Robert. I am wearied by this madness. But I too need my rest and if you insist upon waking me up every hour with your nightmares than I will be in a foul mood. Or I will have to share a bedroom with Paulie and that borders on a mutant massacre waiting to happen. So you must deal with what is truly bothering you and stop foisting it off to the horrors of the world."**

**"My powers?"**

**"Your powers. You teleport and create immense amounts of ice that are only useful in the summer months and then you pretend your nightmares are over the Quantum battle. You have exceeded your potential five fold and you don't have your precious Xavier here to give you his Ward Cleaver speech about power and responsibility and what to do. So you sweat, toss and turn and refrain from using your powers except when in the heat of battle. Revel in them, Robert. Fast and bright lights seem to be the extent of my mutant powers."**

**Bobby laughed and rested his hand on Jean Paul's bare shoulder. "I can't promise you anything, JP. I'm new to this but I know that you're being cool about what we've talked about."**

**"I thought we were discussing mutant powers?"**

**"Once we agreed to share a room together, we both knew that any discussions in here with you sitting on the edge of my bed weren't going to be about mutant powers."**

**"I have thought about your being outside of sexuality and gender boundaries. I am not sure whether to be frightened or titillated. I've made it a point to avoid the confused and frankly, you are literally confusion personified."**

**Bobby touched Jean Paul's hair and smiled. "So how do we start, smartass? By both of us not being scared at potential?"**

**Jean Paul leaned closer. "Put your lips together with mine and do not be afraid."**

**"I'm horrible at relationships," Bobby admitted.**

**"Good. I only find you sexually attractive, not emotionally," Jean Paul climbed closer onto the bed and kissed Bobby. "Robert, you can touch more than my hair. We're now going to have sex. It's much the same as those horrid experiences you've had with women."**

**"Oh. Ok. I knew that. I did. Hey, what would make you think they were horrid with women?"**

**"Well, my hand is on your erect penis and yours is on my ass. Had they been sensational relationships that left you eager for more, I doubt you'd be doing this, non?"**

**"Oh, yeah. I guess you kind of have a point there. Be gentle all right, I'm a virgin."**

**"Really? I always thought your relationship with the Beast was suspect and homoerotic in nature and intensity," Jean Paul smiled as their lips entangled.**

**"Me and Hank? Really?" Bobby grimaced. "He's blue and furry. But I guess in a smart kind of way hot. I never thought about it, he is muscular though. I guess I have to rethink everyone now, huh?"**

**"Could you do me a favor, Bobby and actually do something with me before you start roaming mentally?" Jean Paul sighed as there kiss became deeper.**

**"Sorry. It does feel nice though. I think becauseit's you and not just anybody, you know?" Bobby smiled shyly. "I really do like you even if you seem to hate everyone else."**

**"I don't hate everyone else. I dislike strongly most people based upon hubris and the fact that you all seem to move so infernally slow in action and thought. But you, you stupid bastard, I actually like. Now you can take advantage of that an dhurt me and then I will have no choice but to hurt you back or you can be a safe space for me and I, you."**

**"Were you born on Vulcan or just an avid student of their ways?" Bobby laughed and when jean Paul tried to pull away, he pulled him closer. "You're just a big truculent baby, aren't you, JP?"**

**"I am hating you right now, Bobby. A lot," Jean paul smiled, a rare full and bashful smile, his eyes downcast.**

**"Oh, yeah I'm gonna turn you out like a brown paper bag," Bobby grinned and they both laughed then resumed kissing.**

**Cecelia sat across from Paulie in the small medical lab she'd set up in the brownstone. "Ok, this is going to hurt. Mainly because your body is so damn indestructible."**

**"I'm ready," Paulie grunted as M wrapped her arms under both of his arms.**

**Cecelia focused and psi plasma clamps appeared on her hands and then on his arm, with handles that Sunspot grabbed onto.**

**"Ok, we're going to gently pull in two different directions. Roberto, I'm going to slowly alter the clamps on his arm to adjust for a mild twisting of the broken bone, but don't let go."**

**"I won't," Sunspot, irradiated in ebony energy nodded.**

**Cecelia looked at Paulie, he was ashen and looked dizzy. She suspected that his body was completely normal in it's reactions to an injury, he was slipping into shock the longer his arm was un-set. The pain must've been extraordinary.**

**"Ok, Monet, do you thing," Cecelia nodded, consulting her Shi'ar PDA once again for the x-ray it was doing on his arm. Shi'ar technology backing her up made this a lot easier to see into a body that she couldn't even begin to fathom how she would cut open if she ever had to perform surgery on him.**

**Monet took a deep calming breath, a psi diamond flashing over her right eye and telepathically entered Paulie's feverish mind, she found his psi defenses uncommonly strong, somehow an after effect of his invulnerability and quickly did several exponential calculations----if his powers kept maturing, there would come a point where he would be totally indestructible. Did that mean immortal? Psychologically how did that bode for him having contact with people? She pushed the thought aside and located his pain centers and shut them down slowly and Cecelia imperceptibly nodded and Monet pulled one way and Sunspot the other, pulling the bones apart as Cecelia slowly used her energy clamps to twist Paulie and then with another nod, signal them to let his body, his arm come back together.**

**There was a collective sigh from them all as Roberto reverted to his human form and Kitty stepped into the room from the doorway.**

**"How you doing, champ?" Kitty smiled at Paulie, holding his hand.**

**"Itching to take that bastard Quantum back on again," he grunted as his gauntlets flashed blue sparkles and he seemed to get healthier, pinker before their eyes. Kitty glanced at Cecelia and sure enough the doctor had seen it too, the dependency Kitty had noticed first in space of Paulie to the gauntlets. The problem now was that they needed an X-Man as powerful as he was to deal with Channel and Quantum, the two a greater threat than Kitty had seen in a long time. As eager as she was to take Quantum out, she was terrified at the coming carnage it would entail. It wouldn't be an easy or gentle fight and the responsibility was sqaurely on her shoudlers. But did that mean she would keep prolonging dealing with paulie and those damn gauntlets? What was the greater good?**

**"We'll get him, don't worry. Cecelia, make sure he rests. That goes for you two as well," Kitty nodded at everyone then phased through the floor. A few minutes later she had gone through the basement through the tunnel system to the underground facility that housed the Avery.**

**It was mercilessly hot in the cavern, the energy expenditure of lower Manhattan having been cut off to shut down gas mains and errant electrical lines. Peter had pulled several viewerscreens and control panels from the Avery and set up a mini lab around it. He was also bare from the torso up and Kitty couldn't help but admire how handsome he was, hair hanging a few inches down his back and shoulders.**

**"How's Paulie?" he asked without even looking up.**

**"How'd you know I was here?" Kitty asked, impressed.**

**"You passed through metal. I'm kind of expanding my metal sense outwards now to try and stay in synch with the Avery and these computers."**

**"Nice," Kitty nodded. "Its good to hear that you're getting something out of the X-men other than just risking your life so far."**

**Peter smiled at her. "I know, I had hoped to be at the Institute more, learning more about my powers but being an X-man has always been my dream."**

**"Always?" Kitty was surprised. "Haven't you ever wanted to do or be anything else?"**

**Peter looked at her seriously for a long time. "I know you don't like being an X-Man. The others can't see it but I do. How tired it makes you. Because you started this young. Not that you're old now. I mean you are old but----."**

**"I know what you mean. It's true, I lost your dad, your aunt, a couple of best friends, my dad----all dead from the X-Men legacy. Thats hard to reconcile some days. I'm worried about you though. You need better training than you're getting. I learned on the fly too but I had Prof. Xavier to train me."**

**"Are you suggesting I transfer to the Institute here in New York or follow Xavier to Genosha?" Peter asked bluntly.**

**"No! Don't do that! It's not safe," Kitty said then caught herself. She was so tired from the constant running around and the mental fatigue of knowing that only a few blocks away emergency crews were picking up the dead they hadn't prevented. They were literally hiding on the outskirts of Manhattan that had become a graveyard.**

**Peter looked at her odd. "Does it have to do with Magneto's destruction of the school, Sentinel attacks or something else? The files you encrypted on all of the servers and purged?"**

**"You accessed those?" Kitty asked nervously, she hadn't let her sqaud in on the Xavier Control Files yet.**

**"No. I could've. But I didn't. We were taught honor and respect for privacy in the Beyond, particularly living on a ship on the back of a flying wolf. There wasn't much space, so privacy was a cherished ideal."**

**"It would be dangerous for you to know what's in those files. At least for now. It's important but I don't know how to tell everyone. Especially with Channel out there merged with Quantum."**

**"It's something that we all wouldn't like much?" Peter whispered.**

**"Yes, it is. It would hurt the X-Men too much right now."**

**"And what about you?" Peter asked, stepping closer to her. "It must hurt you having this secret in your heart."**

**Kitty took a deep breath at the nearness of him, as he gently touched her hair. "Peter, this is very confusing for me."**

**"The files or this?" he smiled and leaned down and kissed her gently.**

**Kitty pulled back from the kiss. "We're gonna go with both of those things."**

**"Is it because of my father?"**

**"Yes and no. I don't want to confuse feelings of the past with a second chance or the illusion of a second chance with you. With him. Am I making any sense?"**

**"Yes, of course. I look like him, I'm sure?"**

**"You do and yet you're completely different. You don't even have a Russian accent."**

**"Paulie says I sound like I grew up speaking another language and just learned Enlgish a few years ago from a Puerto Rican."**

**"More of a classical Spainard I would say," Kitty laughed. "Maybe Gaellic. But you do enunciate slightly differently."**

**"Oh, does Northstar speak differently?"**

**"What?" Kitty said confused.**

**"You said a "gaelic"?"**

**Kitty shook her head. "No, no, thats not what I meant. Oh God!"**

**Peter grinned. "Got you! I know the term Gaellic, remember, I studied your world history a long time."**

**They both shared a laugh and then got quiet again as Peter touched her hair again.**

**"Tell me about tracing quantum resonances with the Avery," Kitty smiled.**

**"Quantum is essentially a walking singularity. From Xavier's files on him, I would say he accesses this singularity psionically which is why he was so heavily sedated normally and now uses Channel as a circuit breaker. The event he caused seems to have been from lack of control rather than control. The Shi'ar stardrives work along the same principles to attain faster than light speed by creating a static quantum bubble around the ship and then moving it along the lines of gravity and normal space, which is how such high speeds are achieved," Peter explained leading her over to his consoles.**

**Kitty nodding in understanding, she looked over his consoles at several of his formulas. She was amazed at how well versed he was in so many scientific theories/studies. Metallurgy (obviously) but he was extending into electronics, computer science, biology, bio-tech, physics and now quantum physics. It all made sense with his upbringing in the Beyond but his demeanor was so naive and guileless that it was hard to get the two to agree. He was like Tom Cruise with the mind of Stephen Hawkings, it was hard to reconcile.**

**"Logically then we can use a Shi'ar stardrive to incapicitate him? If only we'd thought of it sooner, we could've saved a lot of lives. Damn it! Why didn't I think of it!" she slammed her fist down onto a work table, making tools and circuit boards jump.**

**"Kitty, don't be so hard on yourself. It's taken me twelve hours of examining Quantum's energy output signature and running test formulas to come up with this. The resonance field couldn't be set up during the heat of battle. Now with his full information in the Avery's databanks, we can do it. Beforehand? No. Unfortunately those people lives who died may be what it takes to stop him completely. According to my test formulas, he could've wiped out the Eastern seaboard----his power doesn't weaken with expenditure, it magnifies several fold. He needs Channel and for now, we need him to maintain that dependency."**

**"Ok, then we have to lure him somewhere that we can focus a quantum resonance field at him? A desert? Space?" Kitty wondered aloud.**

**"There would be very little extraneous radiation so we don't have to worry about that. The stardrive and Quantum's psi fields seem to work incredibly efficiently not to give off radiation thats harmful to lifeforms outside of their immediate vicintiy. I can't promise that we won't have to kill him to keep him in the field or that the field itself won't kill him. We have powers, he _is_ his power."**

**Kitty noticed how close Peter was standing behind her, his hands rubbing her shoulders and she relaxed, she took a deep breath. It felt so good to think with someone who could move as fast as she did and at the same time, she genuinely liked. That mental simpatico had been something that she'd gotten used to not having with his father, Piotr.**

**"Ok. And tracking him? Where is he?"**

**"According to the formulas, he didn't so much of teleport as simply shift himself physically along gravitational lines away from New York. At the same time he became immaterial."**

**"Similar to my power?"**

**"Yes, I think you'll have to be the one to lure him into the bubble of the stardrive as well as keep him there," Peter's hands tightened and he removed them.**

**"Finish the thought, Peter. What would happen to me in the bubble?"**

**"I don't know. You might be able to phase against the speed of the Earh's rotation as you've been practicing with but thats such a minute number in time. Milliseconds. It could do the same to you permanently that it does to him, negate your crude, compared to his, density/quantum mass manipulation. Or as your physical being is the natural state of intangibility-----eradicate you and him at the same moment."**

**Kitty smiled darkly. "I suspected as much when I was in him. We're similar. Too similar. "**

**"Kitty, I think you might also want to accept that Xavier may've recruited you particularly for your ability to eradicate Quantum at some point if necessary as well as the possibility that you could mature into him, powerwise."**

**Kitty froze. Peter was an outsider to the inner circle of the X-Men and yet he'd hit the nail on the head perfectly. She tried to seem calm as she changed the subject. "How long until you can track him down?"**

**Peter shrugged. "I've been data transmitting this whole project to Ari and her battleship at Sanctuary. Though it was badly damaged, it's computers are much more sophisticated. Plus I'm not sure the Avery can generate enough of a static quantum bubble to permanently stop him. I think we can hurt him, we may need Ari to bring in her battlehsip to wherever the fight is to put an end to him."**

**Kitty phased back through him and then began climbing into the air. "I need to rest. You too. Quantum and Channel want Camus back so we have some leverage as long as we have him, they won't randomly strike again. I'm going to consult the other squads to see if we can get some back up when we pinpoint him."**

**Peter smiled and waved as she phased up through the cavern ceiling back into the secret X Corp brownstone above. He could see both the tenderness and steely determination that his father must've loved in her. She hadn't even blinked at knowing to stop their enemy would mean her death. He swore then to find another alternative, even if it meant sacrificing his own life instead.**


	15. Shock to the System

X-Men: Sanctuary 

**Issue # 15**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

"**Shock to the System."**

**Madrid, Spain:**

**Frenzy kicked hard, once then twice at the penthouse wall, Warren and Ng in her arms as she jumped out. She was over fifty stories up. It had seemed like a good escape route at the time when fifty more shock troopers had rushed in, firing plasma rifles. **

**"CHIEF!!!!!" Frenzy shrieked as they plummeted but a moment later she felt strong hands grabbing Warren and Ng from her arms.**

**"You weigh too much," Deathbird said callously as she swooped away and allowed her teammate to continue plummeting.**

**"Bitch!" Frenzy growled as she crashed into the asphalt. She clawed her way back out of the sewers and Psyche and Carlos were there to help pull her to her feet. "Good to see you again, Dani. Have you met Deathbird? She's a real peach."**

**"You too, Jo. Sorry about that, when I ordered you to egress I should've said that Deathbird could only carry two not three of you."**

**"Ummmm hmmmm," Frenzy grinned as Psyche quickly filled her in on the nature of the shocktroopers. Deathbird swooped down with Warren and Ng.**

**"We have to stay on Marat, he's got the Beast in him!" Psyche said as she lead them up a twisting street. "I have a similar rapport with him, he's only a block or two ahead."**

**"And them?" Deathbird said, flying above her teammates, she pointed back at the militia that was coming up behind them. There were close to a hundred of them, heavily armed. They could hear helicopters moving in above the rooftops too.**

**"We've been touched by the rapport, the blood, so they're after us as well as Marat."**

**"This is why I don't do blood swapping!" Frenzy chuckled. "There he is!" she said spotting Marat resting against a lamppost. He looked dazed, the psychic merging of him and the Beast overwhelming.**

**He turned at the sight of them and began spinning his war axe. "Danielle, have you come to join your husband?"**

**"Husband?" Carlos and Warren both balked.**

**"Later," Psyche snapped, drawing a psi arrow. "Marat, you need help. Now either come with us or you'll have to deal with the army behind us!"**

**"This is how you would treat your husband?!" Marat balked, enraged.**

**"A husband?" Deathbird cackled. "The plot thickens!"**

"**Betraying whore!" Marat screamed and charged at the X-Men. Frenzy took the lead, and caught his arm with the axe in it.**

"**Remember me, lambchop?" Frenzy grunted, his strength as great as her own.**

"**The ebon warrior from the world across the stars! I would've thought you dead?" Marat chuckled.**

"**No, we made it. Thanks for abandoning us though, that was sweet. Oh, yeah and this is for killing Nightcrawler!" Frenzy said and punched him into a building.**

**Psyche whirled around to one knee and began firing psi arrows into the advancing militia, Deathbird firing electrical arcs out of the tips of her harpoons from the sky above. "And the whole ebon warrior constant identifications by race are starting to grate as well."**

"**Can you----suck the Beast back out of him?" Warren asked Carlos with a dark grin. "Let's save whatever pun we can both take from that for later."**

"**Touche, Warren. It's that simple, yes but we need him back within my power space. My mystical powers are extremely limited anywhere else."**

"**Great!" Warren grunted as the two of them followed Frenzy into the building. Marat jumped down from the ceiling and swiped his axe at them. Warren easily leapt into the air, Frenzy back pedalled but Carlos was cut in the shoulder, barely able to duck in time.**

"**Ah, my old home, as it were!" Marat laughed violently kicking Carlos, sending him flying back out into the street. His axe flashing brightly he sliced at the front walls and the entire three stories above collapsed down. Frenzy dove on top of Warren to protect him with her body as she barreled deeper into the building.**

"**Nice save, Frenzy!" Warren wheezed through dust and debris as they crashed through a back wall into an alleyway.**

"**I'm getting better at this hero stuff!" Frenzy grinned then turned as a dozen militia skidded into the alley in a Hummer. "This tracking you blood rapports is really getting annoying!"**

"**Tell me about it!" Warren snapped, firing his plasma pistol at the Hummer.**

**The militia officers jumped out of the Hummer, returning fire and Frenzy snatched Warren back into the crumbling building.**

**Marat stood over Carlos, his axe at the man's throat.**

**"All of these centuries, I have stared at your face as a reflection. Heard your petty, simpering thoughts of loneliness, of confusion over your serial immortality. Watched you ally yourself with peasants when a king resided within your chest. Seen you squander the power I offered you!" The Beast raged within Marat at him.**

**"You are evil, an evil that cannot be satisfied with mere control. You wanted subjugation, domination over all that you surveyed. You would eat humanity itself if I even allowed you to taste of power!" Carlos spat back.**

**"Humanity is to be eaten, flesh bag! That is what the Old Ones created your miserable race for, food, fodder, service! Cast aside and throughout time and space, I landed in you, something between a man and a cunt but now I have this being! This Asgardian who is stronger than you, as immortal as you and far more interested in what a partnership can reap. Do you worry over your precious humanity now? Those who cast your kind out, whether you be witch doctor, scholar, scientist or mutant----all of your guises, Allegra? Will you make me choose this vessel as my flagship of evil or will you cease your resistance and willingly join me?" the Beast offered. "I give you one last chance for greatness. To be a name known for millenia!"**

**"You would choose me over this proud Asgardian specimen?" Carlos chuckled darkly. "I may not remember much but I was bored as a Disciple of Christ, what makes you think I would serve you any better than that ill-fated master?"**

**"I do not want to be reunited with my True Sire. Your mutat abilities are more suited to my protection," the Beast admitted.**

**"True Sire?" Carlos said befuddled.**

**"Child, do you believe I was imprisoned in you all these years? I was hiding in an organic, immortal mirror box," the Beast chuckled. "The greater evil is awake, aware and searching for me. Always searching for me. Think it over, Allegra. This shell is more amenable but yours is better suited to me. The difference between a whore and a queen, I daresay!"**

**Marat turned and ran up the block as Deathbird swooped down and snatched Carlos into the air, militia helicopters opening fire from above destroying the pavement.**

**"I'm not that badly hurt, don't lose him!" Carlos said to her as they followed him from above. But his thoughts were on the demon's last words, one what he hadn't even considered all of these centuries, that there was a darkness greater than that which he'd been the container of.**

**Psyche dropped down into the sewer, several militia close behind her and purposefully dove down into the waist high water. They hesitated for a second then summarily opened fire sending the water into a furious boil. After a minute of blasting, a demon rose out of the water and shrieked at them, stepping forward, it's talons stabbing into their heads leaving them unconscious.**

**As the illusion vanished, Psyche came from around the corner. Those trropers were well trained about the Beast, they'd spent so long focused on it's existence that it was easy to yank the fear out and give it substance while she used her psi arrows on them. She hurried through the sewer, trying to maintaing three perspectives at once---Deathbird's from above, Marat's from a few yards ahead and hers, underground below them both. Without of course letting the rapports mesh. It was like watching three tv's at once. Finally she put on a burst of speed and blasted off a manhole cover in front of Marat and came up. It was harder to add consussive power to her psi arrows, the quantum/mystical energies she'd weilded before still wild and uncontrollable. But the effect slowed him down and she climbed out and confronted him.**

**"Danielle, we are not enemies. You have an oath to me!" he raged.**

**"I agree and will abide that oath once that vermin is out of you!" she replied, nocking three more psi arrows into her bow.**

**"This demon empowers me, wife! It gives me the strength that it will take to squash our tribes enemies! I shall not relinquish it," Marat dove at her, swinging his axe and she didn't hesitate to open fire on him. He stumbled back and there was a loud shriek from above as Deathbird slammed into him from behind, raking his back with her claws. Marat turned, grabbing the newest X-Man as if she'd been standing stock still and swung Deathbird into a wall and was hit by a speeding car driven by Carlos. The car crumpled like an accordion against the Asgardian who reached through the broken windshield and yanked Carlos out.**

**"If the vessel dies, so do you!" Carlos roared, slamming his fist into Marat's face. Marat didn't even flinch as he hurled Carlos away and turned back to Psyche who was firing more arrows.**

**Marat batted them away with his axe arrogantly. "Nothing left? Was that your best shot? Should I answer the demon's bloodlust and kill you?" **

**The ground below his feet erupted and Frenzy snatched him underground.**

**"Just needed you to stand still for a minute," Psyche smirked and took several steps forward then fell to her knees. She felt violently ill. As if something were spinning her around.**

**"Dani!" Carlos screamed as he ran over to her, she was beginning to fade away. "The spell isn't powerful enough to hold you here yet. Two kinds of magicks working together and against each other at the same time. Marat's spell is being strengthened by the Beast's energy, which is weakening my spell."**

**"The other man said I would hop back and forth for awhile. Guess this is what he meant," Psyche groaned as Carlos wrapped himself around her.**

**"Other man? God, woman, how many of us have you bewitched with your beauty? Then you won't be alone," Carlos whispered and they both vanished.**

**Madripoor:**

**Jack Quantum didn't like running from a fight but the devastation to New York, to lower Manhattan, had drawn too much attention for him to stay and not have heroes and militaries fall upon him. The fortification of Channel within his mind allowed him access to his own keen perspective on survival. For the first time in a decade he was free of drugs to control himself. That drug induced lethargy had been his pact with Xavier for not joining his pathetic band of mutants and not being psionically shutdown by the telapth for the safety of the world.**

**Jack closed the newspaper that had declared over one hundred thousand people dead in Manhattan, that number unaccounted for those left homeless or injured due to his downtown quantum explosion, that was numbered at another two hundred thousand. Only weeks on the heels of Magneto's reign of terror and subsequent beheading by Wolverine, the world was reeling. The icing on the proverbial cake was teh death of the United States Vice President in Air Force one. A simple change of schedule, not publicly known had ended the man's life when Quantum had thought, he'd actually killed the President himself. Jack snickered at that particular casualty, he'd pulled the trigger on many a scope rifle to kill some backwater foreign national politician but never an american. And of course now he couldn't take responsibility for it---the X-men were searching for him and the US military, including SHIELD and probably the Avengers by now. His next move had to be bold, dramatic and wholely unexpected.**

**"Do you really think this will work, Channel?" Jack said out loud as he clutched the gaudy costume in his fist. Though Channel was within his mind, it was easier to speak to him aloud. **

**_If we appeared as say Quantum, new mutant supervillain, the world would attack us zealously_, Channel answered mentally. _But this way, they will hesitate and that hesitation will give us time to gather and then strike once. We need the mutant equivalent of Satan to draw the world's furor so that we will be even more powerful and precise in our true goal. And also we have the X-Men to consider---they need their holier than thou retribution._**

**Jack nodded, understanding the necessity for both deception and complex grandiosity. A short term ruse for the long term goal.**

**"You believe they'll bring your brother Camus?"**

**_Yes, if only to insure capturing me in a safe host and giving them the freedom to destroy you_.**

**"Vicious pups Xavier has bred, no?" Jack smiled as his fist charged with energy, altering the energy bonds between the molecules of the costume and armor he clutched. It melted like water onto his naked body as he stepped out onto the terrace of teh Madripoor Royale Hotel. He looked down at High Town all but repaired from its year of alien invasion and mutant fracases.**

**Jack finished his tumbler of bourbon then put on the magenta helmet that completed his rainment. His eyes flashed with power as he found the energy being pulsed down from telecommunication satellites and usurped teh airwaves, the radiowaves. Bending them to his will, manipulating them as easily as he did all forms of energy. It was simple after that with Channel's firm mental grounding to network his energy control and awareness to satellites first over the entirety of the Pacific Rim, then Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia and finally the Americas.**

**Every computer screen, every television, every radio-----any video or voice receiver from NORAD to cell phones boradcast his image and words.**

**"I live!" Magneto roared at the world in his familiar helmet and rainment, cloak floawing with sizzling energy. "I make a path for you. Come to me, my children!"**

**The energy lattice throughout the global satellites collapsed as abruptly as it had started and Jack Quantum fell to one knee a moment later. To push his powers further would increase them exponentially, a quantum leap----luckily he had Channel now to create a circuit breaker.**

**"Did it work?" Jack asked, raspily, grabbing hold of the Magneto helmet and crawling back into his suite. Several plasma screen televisions had been set up in the living room. Set to every major news netwrok there was the towering, energy crackling image of Magneto, with frantic reporters replaying his message over and over and over around the world.**

**_Oh, it worked perfectly. Better than perfectly in fact. The Earth which sighed when the true Magnus' head flew and then gasped in terror at the slicing of Manhattan is now pissing it's collective pants at you. And I would gather adding two and two that to the logical conclusion that it was again Magneto who was responsible for the second atatck on New York City. We are officially non-existent in the eyes of the world. Magneto reigns supreme!_**

**"Beautiful," Jack grunted, his low cut hair full of sweat as he pulled himself to his feet, the purple cloak wrapped over his arm. "And now to tell my "children" where to come."**

**He picked up the helmet, put it firmly on then soared out out of the windowover High Town. He hovered in the night sky for several moments then landed on a far beach facing East, out to sea. With a deep breath he called upon the energies loosed in new York. Cutting, destructive energy-----eight feet high, ten feet wide and let the solid energy travel forth.**

**"CONTROL! Remember we need control of this one!" Jack shouted to Channel who was mentally holding back all the destructive energy and merely releasing the light effect. A flash of light circled the Earth, crossing seas and continents until it came full circle against Jack's back. He almost laughed at **

**what had seemed impossibly grand before was now so easy. A band of light around the Earth and then with an uprising of his arms---a beam hot into the night sky, a beacon to the isle of Madripoor.**

**Madripoor Royal Palace:**

**"Holy shit!" Viper gasped as she watched the stream of light shoot up from her isle, she almost fell out of her king sized bed. Instinctively she grabbd for her pistols under her pillow, her knife in her book, a grenade behind her nightstand. The televised images before her, the klaxon alerts going off, the flashes of energy through the night sky outside her windows. A quick glance at her datacomm screen next to her bed, left her breathless.**

**Magneto was here! Alive! And here!**

**She stumbled to her closet and snatched out a fresh uniform, pulling it on furiously. Finally she had to drop her clutched weapons on the carpetted floor to fit on her gloves.**

**Magneto!**

**If she believed in a god, if she wasn't a total nihilistic she would've cursed him and prayed to him. The smouldering images of Genosha racing through her mind. She'd repelled an alien invasion, several more X-Men related attacks and fights, there had been political and criminal in-fighting on a grand scale during all of this. Madripoor was like a wild tiger that had been stabbed and was whipping around but she'd thought she'd brought it under control, that the worst was over. What was the mutants damn problem? Why couldn't they take their dramas elsewhere?**

**Magneto had attacked New York weeks ago. Was he the one responsible for the destruction only a few days ago? Of course he was!**

**Magneto was alive!**

**She sat down in the closest chair, actually trembling with fury and naked terror.**

**"Why me?!" she shrieked.**

**Paris, France:**

**Amara hated the color black. While it made her look stylish, she felt it was too harsh and ultimately too dark but when in Rome, she thought ironically and entered the masisve Goth ball. Wall to wall people in black---velvet, leather, silks, make-up thick and dramatic. More kohl on eyes than she thought possible.**

**The Vampire Ball during the Festival of Mort, a party thrown monthly by the Misery cult.**

**Silly, Amara thought. A bunch of anemic children---rich and poor---running around with false elongated teeth, spending their parents money as they tried to pretend to be dangerous, to be creatures of darkness. How many hours ago had one hundred thousand died in Manhattan? There were prayer vigils in other parts of the city, and arounf the world. And instead of being with Shadowcat's team hunting a mass murderer down she was infiltrating some insipid mutant cult that wasn't even worthy of a full squad being sent after it. Amara had read IRC's dossier on Misery's cult thoroughly and come to the conclusion that if they hadn't of forced a dozen rich kids to kill themselves, it would've never come to their attention. There was also the bigorty of all things mutant being worthy of quick and vicious investigation and elimination.**

**The state of mutant affairs, seemingly growing better after Xavier had publicly revealed himself a mutant and created X Corp was spinning out of control. They were all exposed now to the mutant forces and government intrigues of the world. A new commodity that people were judging and gathering or eliminating based upon their own mores. Amara thought that next week, theHellfire Ball in Venice would be a good chance for her to discuss these concerns with the Inner Circle. As the Red Queen, she'd slowly been creating her own power base with first Carlos and now Deathbird but she needed more, she needed a network of her own to compensate for her lack of fortne like Sebastian Shaw had or cultish devotees such as Selene.**

**Two men caught her eye, from the dossier that the IRC had provided on Misery. The mutant leaders personal guards. Which meant the woman herself was nearby. Probably scouting the crowd for young mutants to recruit. The hope was that she would spot Amara and mark her as an X-Man and then steal their real bait. Raphael. With Tran within him to protect him, the plan was to spring free and disrupt the cult at it's source.**

**Using Raphael had been Warren's decision. Amara wasn't wild about it. The boy was young, inexperienced and until recently the thrall of Holy Mother, an extremely deadly enemy. And now he was a pseudo X-Man with grandeur of being bait. Delightful. The Sanctuary team was getting more and more warped every day.**

**"Hello, child," a tall white haired gentleman said to Amara. He flashed elongated teeth and Amara wondered how much having his canines filed down to points had cost him, he honestly looked like a vampire. The pallid skin, the dark black suit, expensive and hand tailored but even his shirt was pitch black. It was all really quite boring, Amara thought with a sigh. **

**"I am no child, fool," Amara snapped coldly and shoved him aside, making her way deeper into the crowd but his vise like grip clutched her upper arm. She debated briefly burning him but there were too many people, around she could start a riot or hurt someone else. "What do you want?" she hissed.**

**"A taste please, madamoiselle? Please?" his large blue eyes looked hauntingly pathetic on his pale face and she smiled back. Once he got close enough she would strike. She gave him a gentle nod, humoring the simpering fool.**

**He leaned in closer, his breath heavy on her, the scent wafting up to her nose as he leaned into her throat. Blood. His breath smelled of blood. Surprised, Amara lost her footing before she could drive her knee into his groin. The next thing she felt was his teeth sinking into her throat.**

**By the Gods!**

**He was a real vampire she realized, trying to form words to call over her comm link for help. But suddenly what had seemed like a giant rave around her, thousands of partygoers, she saw clearly. A dozen of them had purposefully surrounded her and were now moving in closer, tightly around her, submerging her into their dark clothing and cloaks.**

**Amara panicked for a brief moemnt and then all went black.**

**"Amara?" Shan said over her comm link, far deeper into the party hall than anyone else as she'd arrived an hour earlier. She'ds bearound her for hours, quick flashes that interuppted their memories whenever they glanced at her so that no one truly "saw" her. She was there as Raphael's back-up and protector should it come to that. Raphael was a few feet away from her, in head to toe leather, looking young and delectable, sitting at a table chatting away with several of Misery's known cult members. From the mannerisms, Shan knew it was truly her brother in charge, she could only imagine how scared Raphael must'v ebeen. This was similar to the Brood and HolY mother on so many levels.**

**"Amara?" Shan whispered again but no response. The spinning psychedelic lights, smoke machines and dark, throbbing music made it hard to tell but for an instant, Shan had had the impression that there had been a slight tremor. Was that Amara in danger or just reverbarations from the dance floor?**

**Shan felt a slight mental touch from Tran and looked up to see Raphael being lead by a group towards a private door, a VIP section. **

**_They fancy themselves vampires_! Tran laughed mentally at his sister. _They are children playing at darkness. I must meet this Misery woman, she seems to knwo how to enslave well._**

**_Are they mutants though?_ Shan asked her brother.**

**_Not the ones I am with, but they are taking me to the Misery woman. An introduction, I told them I could read minds._**

_**Raphael? How is he fairing?**_

_**Intrigued but not nearly as frightened as you worry. He likes the excitement and trusts us. Remember he's seen us destroy Brood and save worlds!**_

**The door closed and abruptly Shan felt their mental link break. It should've subsided but not end so quickly, so throughly. Tran didn't have much time left to be in Raphael's body, each day a further strain. The only reason why they'd allowed it to continue was to get into the cult. Something was wrong. Before she could signal Nemesis and Magma, she felt someone pressing at her thoughts. She turned and a white haired man seized her shoulders, his eyes shimmering vibrant blue.**

**"I am Rene. We have your friend. Surrender or---!" he didn't get to finish as Shan lashed out with her possession power, immune to whatever hypnosis she'd felt him pushing at her mind. She snapped a kick into his chin then dropped two sedative darts from her sleeves and stabbed him in the chest.**

**It was then that she noticed more moving in around her, at least a dozen. They had her surrounded. Shan backpedalled, flipping backwards over a table and bringing up her sleeves to throw half a dozen more tranquilizer darts. Her dark dress and cloak had been to simply cover her green kevlar mesh costume, supposedly she'd need more physical protection than the others. She stood on a table, kicked back an attacker and whipped her cloak and dress off and into the faces of two more. She'd spent quite a bit of time in the past couple of years honing her physical abilities, the only addition she had besides her possession power, which time and experience had taught her weren't always valuable. Three more attackers lunged at her and Shan hopped up and came down onto one of the chairs, kickin it so that it spun her around to kick two in the face. She flattened her back onto the tableand slammed the chair into the face of the third and stood back up, ready. **

**A dozen more cult members poured out of the crowd at her, the insanity of the party, hiding their attack as she hurled up a steel line into the lighting lattice and pulled herslef up. That was when she got her first surprise. Several of them actually leaped into the air at her, teeth bared. They were flying.**

**True vampires!**

**One on the ground grabbed the end of her steel line and shot a bolt of electricity through it. Shan shrieked but was able to leap onto a catwalk. Her gloves were insulated but she'd still gotten enough of a shock to disorient her. It seemed that they were mutant vampires as well. Wonderful. **

**Several of the vampires landed on the catwalk, perching like vultures on the railing and Karma didn't hesitate to lash out with a her possession power like a battering ram. The sheer psi force of the attack caused them to reel backwards and fall into the crowd below as more black clad vampires flew up after her. Two grabbed her from behind and Karma slammed her arms back, the steel mesh under the silk like cast iron pans against their skulls. She whirled around and fired tranquilizer dats into them and then spun to run. There were more and more flying up from the dance floor, to the horror and amazement of the crowd below, depending on how drug they were or weren't. Karma knew she was no match for so many alone, she still had the element of surprise though. **

**Karma pulled another trick from her belt, smoke pellets that exploded on the catwalk, masking her leaping from one to another and then to a far exit door. She was kicking the door open when a vampire came up the exit stairs, reaching for her. Karma continued her momentum forward then rolled onto her haunches, driving her feet into his stomach as she grabbed his outstretched hands. Though he was nearly three times her weight, she easily flipped him out the door she'd come through and continued down the stairwell from where he'd come. **

**"Nemesis! Nemesis can you hear me!?" Karma said over the comm link and skidded to a stop at the top of the stairs as the crimson form of Nemesis and her billowing cloak flew up them. Karma had a moment of almost fright as she watched Nemesis come closer then she relaxed. This was her trusted teammate.**

**"Crystal clear," Nemesis said, flying up next to her teammate and unsheathing her sword, then she slashed it into Karma's throat, nearly severing her head off. Karma didn't even have time to shriek as her body tumbled backwards in a blood spurting heap. **

**Nemesis brought her sword down and wiped it clean on her sword then flew back downstairs. She knocked dozens of people aside as she raced across the dance floor towards the VIP door and slashed her way through it. The astral form of Tran was on his knees in an empty hallway, Raphael and the others gone. Nemesis could see small electrical sparks sizzling into his body---some sort of magical spell kept him in the hall, had separated him from Raphael she surmised. **

**Tran looked up at her. "They were expecting us! The last impression I got was that Misery wanted Raphael specifically, we delivered him to her! I've lost contact with my sister, Nemesis, you have to find her so that I can remerge with her."**

**"Are they far ahead with Raphael?" Nemesis asked.**

**"No, I was able to fight them, delay them. Maybe thirty seconds."**

**"Good man."**

**Nemesis yanked her sword up and drove it deep into his transparent back, eldritch energy exploding from her blade and blowing him to pieces.**

**Nemesis looked at the empty hallway with no remorse then continued forward, all that mattered now was finding Raphael.**

**Sanctuary, Australia:**

**Ari stood looking at the sunset, her battleship sat perched on a butte high above Sanctuary, as both a natural landing and launching point and an excellent point for defense or offense. She'd read the humans files on the attack on the island called Genosha. Their list of enemies was many and varied. Almost endless. She could see why they fought so hard and viciously. **

**This world, these people were now her home. She could of course take her ship and sail off into space but how long could she survive without the Shi'ar technology to repair her ship that the mutants had in supply fro when Lilandra had first set them up. Plus their base itself was hybrid technology, Ari suspected extraterrestrial in orgin. But advanced enough to repair most of her ship. Plus this world was marked as contagion, there would be no Shi'ar hunting done a captain gone rogue here, no retrieval squads for her precious ship. She touched the metallic hull and felt a deep sense of reassurance that for the first time in decades she was actually free of the beureaucracy that had her patrolling useless corners of the galaxy, ferrying foolish diplomats to and fro. Perhas with these X-Men she could accomplish much.**

**Looking down below at the Sanctuary town, expanded and completely intergrated with what had once been the isle of San Madre, all of it's residents now milling about, she felt pride. Perhaps she couldn't save her own people but she had saved these. That would be enough for now. There would come a time though when she asked these X-Men for a favor in return for her loyalty and they would have no choice but to return with her to the stars with a cure for her people. The telepaths here seemed bountiful according to their records. Much could be done to cure the Insanity Virus.**

**"Captain Ari?" IT the Sanctaury base artificial intelligence hologram appeared with a warm smile. "Mr. Rosten, Ms. Drew and Ms. Frost would be delighted if you would join them for dinner."**

**"Yes, I'll be right down," she nodded. She checked her comm link. Hunter was four miles out securing the perimeter with the one called Juggernaut and the small police force they'd been training. He was more comfortable with the mutants as allies than she was, she wished he was attending also. Instead she walked slowly down the butte path, several hundred feet below on an outcropping sat the small old Aboriginal man she'd been told had vanished this whole continent with his mutant powers. She nodded politely at him but didn't take her hand off of her holstered plasma gun. He made her distinctly nervous.**

**"What do you think?" Emma asked calmly as the four of them sat in her all white apartment, the temperature cooler than anywhere else on the base, having finished a sumptuous dinner.**

**Ari shrugged at the PDA. "I believe Peter's science is sound. He has a better than expected grasp of Shi'ar engines but I'll have to go over it in detail. The data transmit he sent me was theoretical, I'll have to work out the formulas for containing a quantum field in a specific area. Thats not something we do outside of a ship thats not in space."**

**Alex spoke up. "Ari, Quantum is perhaps the most dangerous mutant we've faced here yet. We have to find a way to stop and or imprison him before the squad encounters him again. From the numbers, New York wasn't even near his potential. And they suspect one hundred thousand are dead there."**

**"We all know you're here by----accident, but we need to know if you're going to play ball with us?" Jessica asked bluntly.**

**"Play ball?" Ari was confused.**

**"You could set off your ship's self destruct and take out much of this town, dear. Will you?" Emma asked sweetly. "Your mind makes it difficult to know your thoughts and originally, you were a hostage. Your interests were mutual to a point with the X-Men but now?"**

**Ari laughed. "No, X-Men. Have no fear. I don't seek revenge for my discommendation at your hands. The goal was noble and you did repel an invasion of my empire until forces could arrive. If nothing, I in the name of my Empire, owe you fealty."**

**"Good," Emma smiled.**

**"For now. Not forever," Ari added and there was a silence at the table.**

**"Well thats better than what Juggernaut said," Emma shrugged. "I'll be leaving in the morning. I trust the three of you can keep this base in one piece? I'll start shipping in students within the month."**

**"We still need to figure out something for the San Madre people to do," Jessica reminded. "There's hundreds of caverns around the center of the base, we have no idea if they're all natural or intended to be a growth of this, by whoever constructed this place. I suggest we get them on mapping it and then construction of living facilities underground."**

**"Expecting a war?" Emma asked. "Bunkers?"**

**"We all know that this place is on it's way to becoming a fully functional city. Maybe in a year or two but I've seen the list of four hundred students you want to ship down here, Emma. We'll need more facilities. Literally we have a month to create a university for mutants that includes a multitude of danger rooms and class rooms. All of the construction we've done so far has been to integrate the computer systems and then make the San Madre people comfortable. We haven't touched on handling thousands of mutant students yet," Alex replied.**

**"Or how the people of San Madre will react to this integration," Jessica added. "Humans and mutants intergated and living peacefully is about to happen here. A storm in a tea kettle if it doesn't go right."**

**"Understood. The psionic mirrors are in place, I'll execute them before I leave and we'll be effectively moving and shifting to anyone I haven't placed the psi suggestion of location in so far. You'll be protected by misdirection. Alex, you'll have to explain to the Australian government that Sanctuary is no longer where it was," Emma smiled.**

**"And if I don't?" Alex challenged.**

**"Then you die with a full stomach," Emma grinned. **

**Jessica touched her nearly invisible ear piece. "What is it, IT? Broadcast!" she yelled.**

**"Broadcast my death?" Alex blanched then he got the same message over his comm link from IT. "Oh. A world emergency."**

**They all looked up as a holographic image of Magneto declaring his rebirth appeared on every viewer on the planet.**

**"Holy shit!" Alex gasped.**

**"Why me?!" Emma groaned. "The bastard was beheaded! What does it take to end him? IT, are you sure thats him? I saw him die. I mean REALLY die."**

**IT's floating head appeared next to the screen and Emma actually jumped at seeing a floating head. "If this is not Magneto then it beggars the question who else could access this much widespanning power."**

**"Quantum!" they all said at once.**

**"Masquerading as Magneto? Both blunt and ingenious!" Emma said with a cock of her head. "You must admire Channel. He certainly isn't another boring villain."**

**Jessica watched closely as the light circle was shown on a news show to begin and then end at Madripoor. A staff of light going up from the island's center. "God must really hate Madripoor."**

**"Hear, hear," Alex agreed.**

**"And not a squad worth a piss to send there after him," Emma sighed. "I'll contact Shadowcat. Now we've got to start beheading impostors. Delightful."**

**Madripoor:**

**Viper stood defiantly in the penthouse suite of the Madripoor Royal Hotel watching as Magneto watched her. They'd been this way for almost ten minutes. She decided the game was over and spoke.**

**"How did you survive being beheaded on worldwide television?" she asked.**

**"It was a ruse created by Xavier after the battle with the X-Men to assuage the fears of the world. They thought they'd banished me to another dimension with the late Phoenix's power."**

**Viper didn't think he was exactly telling the truth but she pressed on. "Why here? Why Madripoor? Why not return to Genosha? Were you responsible for the attack on Manhattan?"**

**"Part of the deal to fake my death was to give Genosha to Xavier. I am a man of my word," he said from deep within the helmet but it didn't seem like he completely believed the words. "Have no fear, Prince Viper, I won't be staying on your fair island for long."**

**"Mutants are flooding in by boat and plane thanks to your light beacon. While it proves better landing lights than a small city, it's also got my island surrounded by every world power looking to destroy you. Frighteningly enough, I am their Emissary," Viper sneered. "They want to know your intentions or they will cut off the travel of anyone to this island. They're considering sending the Avengers in. The only thing that is saving you here is the extradition laws."**

**"Better than Israel, Bimini and Switzerland put together, yes, I know. Which is one of the reasons why I'm here. You have a choice, Viper, you can stand in front of me, with me or against me."**

**"None of those positions seem beneficial to my long term health where you're concerned," Viper admitted.**

**"First, give me the Marauders you have imprisoned. I've already decided on a new base of operations. If I am pleased with your respect towards me I will not use my powers to rip this island from the Earth and make it my new Asteroid M. I am no longer a man willing to dawdle. Assist me and I'll be out of your hair within a week."**

**"And the X-Men? I'm sure they're packed aboard the biggest plane they can find to come here and get you for your crimes. I won't have my country torn asunder by a war between you and them." **

**Magneto stood up slowly and walked towards her, his entire body crackling with energy. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear...."**

**Viper covered her face as a bright flash of light went off and when she opened them again she was on a hill top, Magneto standing next to her. He pointed at the hotel that he'd just teleported them out of.**

**Too stunned to speak, his new powers amazing even her, Viper didn't notice his glowing fist point at the hotel until the screeching blast let loose from it. Rather than destroy the building by crumbling it, the entire thirty story structure trembled then slowly began to vanish like a burning photograph. Within a minute it was gone.**

**"I can do the same to High Town or Low Town without hesitation," Magneto grinned and then vanished in a flash.**

**Viper sat down on her haunches, shocked at the casual display of power, at the number of lives he'd so easily taken. Somehow Magneto's power had grown ten fold, beyond even just magnetism. She shook her head in resignation. Her final plan to cut and run from the island wouldn't make her safe from such a mutant. She would play along for now, give him the Marauders in custody and then explain to the world powers who had a dozen nuclear submarines surrounding her island that they were dealing with a god, not a man. And this god would rule them all or destroy them all.**

**Paris, France:**

**Misery held Raphael's face in her bony hands while she deeply examined him with both her eyes and her senses. Four of her servants were holding him a few feet off of the ground by his arms and legs. The wrenching of Tran from him had left him nearly unconscious.**

**"Why the Master wants you, I cannot see?" she admitted.**

**"Master?" Raphael asked calmly though his voice was groggy, they'd pulled off his velmet garments revealing his black X-uniform. He knew it provided him with some protection and with their flashing vampire teeth, he was glad he'd opted for the high color with buckles around his throat uniform. They were in a stone cellar, under the dance hall because he could still hear the music throbbing in the distance. But Misery wasn't what he had expected at all. She was a short, rather plump woman but everyone around her, at least two dozen dark clad mutant vampires by his count, seemed awed by her. There was no fear in his face though, he'd grown up with the Brood for years, he'd seen much bigger teeth. **

**"Yes, even I serve a living god," Misery grinned. "Ironic, no? You are a mutant though. That I can tell. I see tendrils of power from you, touching everything. All of us. Do you feel it? Can you manipulate it, boy?" **

**"My teammates will be here soon," Raphael replied. He wasn't exactly afraid, more of unsure of what to do. His mutant powers were still so new to him. He'd practiced some with Holy Mother but she'd focused so much of her power through him that it had made them unnecessary. "I know about my powers and I recommend you surrender, I'm with the X-Men. The X-Men never lose, my being one of them is a testimony to that."**

**Misery giggled and soon the whole room was full of dark laughter from her minions. Finally able to get herself under control she looked deeply into his eyes. "You are an akasa, boy. It is a an East Indian term. It means an intuitive oneness with everything. I see your mental filaments slipping out. I will use you to strengthen my network to build it from hundreds to millions."**

**Raphael shrugged. "Thank you anyway but I'm with the X-Men now."**

**Misery leaned closer and touched his jugular vein. "I will sup on you and as my thrall I will train you in the proper advancement of your abilities. Won't that be grand?"**

**"Again, no thank you," Raphael said calmly.**

**"You have no choice," Misery said confused at his calm refusal. "Why are you so calm?"**

**Raphael smiled and flexed his body outward, psionic energy surging through the four holding him, sending them flying into the far walls of the cavern. He pointed and psionic energy lattices appeared around half a dozen more surprised thralls. "Like you said, my energy filaments are everywhere, I just have to pull them into existence and strength." Raphael stepped back, making sure that none were behind him or between him and the door, his left eye and side of his face flashing with a psionic signature of infinity.**

**"So you were a ruse? Bait?" Misery chuckled.**

**"Something like that!" Nemesis said as she crashed through the door and flew over Raphael at Misery. **

**The ground below began to rumble and finally exploded in lava as Magma rode up on a tower of earth. "These inhuman bastards actually put me into a crypt! A crypt! They thought a bite to the neck, draining of blood would kill me. That contact with Mother Earth wouldn't instantly restore me!"**

**Furiously, Magma blasted thralls aflame as Nemesis slammed Misery against a far wall, her sword drawn. A hand grabbed Nemesis' arm, Rene, a loyal servant raging at her.**

**"No!" he roared and Nemesis calmly let go of Misery and piroutted, slicing his head clean off. When she turned back around, her sword stabbing into the wall where the woman had been, Misery was rushing through a doorway that lead further down into catacombs. Nemesis dove down after her and the two women tumbled in the dark until they came to a violent rest on a stone floor.**

**"You hide form the others but this old woman can see your thoughts! You kill your own teammates? What kind of abomination are you?!" Misery raged, trying to throttle Nemesis at the same time that her opponent tried to get the leverage to stab her with her sword.**

**"My goals and reasons are beyond your comprehension, demon!" Nemesis hissed angrily though she felt a panic in her heart. Had anyone heard what this vampire had said, had seen? She had to kill her quickly.**

**"I haven't survived this long for a traitor to slay me!" Misery screamed and with a strength twenty times her opponent's, threw Nemesis against a wall. Moving both faster and more viciously than anyone would've expected from the small woman, Misery leapt at Nemesis and with just her nails slashed open the woman's jugular. "I would stay to sup on you but you disgust me!"**

**Nemesis fell to her knees in agony, clutching her neck and Misery kicked her viciously in the mid-section, several ribs shattering under the assault. Misery then smashed her fist into the woman's masked face and grinned at the satisfying sound of her jaw breaking. Though a small woman, almost matronly looking, she took a great delight in bashing her fists dozens of times into the woman, bones shattering under her blows.**

**"Vampire!!" Magma roared from the top of the stairs, her molten body iluminating the darkness. "We've slain your precious servants. Now it's your turn!"**

**Misery snatched Nemesis up to her feet. "She's badly injured. See her die to stop me? Or get her the care she needs? Choices, choices, fire bitch!"**

**Magma hesitated for a moment, she could see how badly injured Nemesis was, before she could act she was knocked aside as Raphael barreled down the stairs in a wild leap and grabbed Nemesis. Not the most skilled of rescues, Magma thought but it gave her a clear shot at Misery which she took. Misery screamed as her clothes burst into flames and she ran into the darkness. **

**"I'll pursue her----," Magma said as she hurried down the stairs but the way Raphael was cradling Nemesis told her that she couldn't leave them. Gritting her teeth angrily she blasted a wave of molten lava down the corridor Misery had fled into. If it didn't kill her, hopefully it would scar her, Magma thought as she returned to her human form. **

**"It looks very bad, she's unconscious," Raphael said. "I can feel her life essence slipping away." **

**Raphael tightened Nemesis' cloak around her throat as Amara tried to call Karma on the comm link. **

**"Karma? Shan? SHAN!! Damn it!" Amara raged after a full minute of no answer, she reverted back to Magma and blasted through to the streets of Paris above. "Follow me up, it will cool fast. I know a direct route to the nearest hospital." They didn't have time to wait, they had to get their teammate to a hospital. **

**Amara stood in the waiting room of the hospital, grateful that she spoke French and that she carried her X Corp identification with her. She was now in a small office with Raphael on a speaker phone call to the Sanctuary base.**

**"Sounds like it went badly," Alex Rosten said sympathetically. "Any idea who this Master was that was interested in Raphael?"**

**"No, another enemy for the files and to pop up one day," Amara replied. "What does concern me though are the IRC people here who've quadraned off Nemesis' surgical area. They won't let either myself or Raphael to even see her. What is that about, Alex?"**

**"One, Amara, its not personal. Magneto's reappearance has got many a threat being made against X-Men. Two, Nemesis after her Canadian tenure became affiliated with the IRC. Thirdly, our agreement with her includes any injuries which incapicitate her are handled by the IRC, if so possible. Her wishes because of her own peculiarities under her mask, I suspect," Alex lied calmly, glad that it was a phone line and not a video screen. He wasn't sure if he could seem so convincing to them eye to eye with his major concern being Nemesis. Also the fact that he was the one who had sent the agents in to guard Nemesis against Amara and Raphael learning her identity wasn't something he could risk being read on his face nor them accidentally seeing.**

**"We were at the paty when Magneto's message hit the airwaves but we've seen the televised news and papers. I expect we'll be on our way to Madripoor soon?" Amara asked, there was something in the way Alex's answers had seemed so prepared that made her wonder. The mystery of Nemesis hadn't been aything that they had paid much attention to, far greater worries surrounding them but Amara had the feeling that they should've insisted on knowing her identity at somepoint. She made a mental note to bring it up to Warren. "And the Parisian police and IRC shutdown the Festival of Mort but found no sign of Karma, nor Tran."**

**"Let us worry about Magneto, Magma. Wasn't Tran....well, directly, with you, Raphael?" Alex asked.**

**"The last I saw of Tran, he was trapped in the hallway by something mystical when they walked me through it. That's what separated us," Raphael offered. "That also cut off our mental link with Shan. I don't know what happened to her."**

**"We're going back there, Alex," Amara said. "Shan is one of my oldest friends, I will not leave her behind. Also I believe I wounded Misery but didn't kill her. I want to remedy that."**

**Alex shivered at the coldness in the woman's tone, she was younger than him and yet more vicious than he had heard from agents twice her age in the intelligence field. He wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing. It didn't help that she was the Red Queen in the Hellfire Club, Emma Frost was lesson enough that such an associationw asn't a tempering thing.**

**"Just the two of you?" he asked. "Amara, that's unacceptable."**

**"My control of the earth and Raphael's psionic abilities will allow us to find our teammates. We'll only search and defend, not go on the offensive unless pushed."**

**"Amara I really think you should allow me to find some more members to back the two of you up. I'll have Gateway send------," Alex said and Amara hung up the phone. **

**She turned and looked at Raphael "Are you ready, Raphael?"**

**"Call me Akasa and yes, I'm with you. Misery called me akasa and I like what it stands for. Besides I can't run around being called Raphael liek Peter and Paulie do, I need a codename. I don't want to sound paramoid, but I think he was lying. My psi abilities aren't as practiced but I have a strong intuitional sense about things," Raphael said hesitantly.**

**"Yes, I got the same impression. I suspect Nemesis is more of a government agent than an X-Man and Alex is playing one of his silly little espionage games. Threats like Magneto have made the world powers extremely nervous about us mutants."**

**"Yes, I've noticed. Do you think the cult is still there?"**

**"In the catacombs, most likely. I remember where they held me and I can take us back there, I expect thats where we'll find Shan and Tran trapped in the hallway you left him in." **

"**Shan and Tran were instrumental in freeing me from Holy Mother, I will not abandon them, even if it means my life," Akasa swore. "I have to admit I'm ashamed that I don't have better psionic training. I might be able to sense more. If only there were a way to have another person with me like Tran was."**

"**Good to hear you expressing that kind of openness," Amara nodded. "Have you ever considered other options as well? Say an organization like the Hellfire Club? We have some excellent benefits. And you'd make an excellent rook."**

**Somewhere:**

**Carlos woke up and immediately noticed the lean to over him. The sharp clean air. He was confused. Had he died? Again? Was he in some relatives newborn or teenaged body? **

**The last thing he'd remembered was the battle with marat in the streets of Madrid. His own assassins chasing him and the other X-Men. He sat up and his chest and arm throbbed in pain. The cut from Marat? Yes, he remembered that. For a moment he panicked an dthen felt the steady calm of Dani's mind nearby. But not Warren's or Deathbird's. Or even the slight whisper of Amara's. In fact if he stretched out with his empathy to it's limit, he could feel nothing at all except for small animals and birds. There had been a fight. A fierce battle and the spell was unraveling.**

**_Danielle_! He shouted mentally.**

**She was fading back into the dimension he'd rescued her from. Without the completion of the spell, he couldn't ground her back to Earth.**

**"Not your fault," Dani said aloud as she walked over to the lean to with a straw sack of fruits and vegetables.**

**He looked up at her, her hair flowing freely, a makeshift bow and arrow over her shoulder, she looked like she'd stepped out of a Cheyenne painting from tow thousand years ago. He wondered briefly in all of his travels, all of his lives, had he met some of her ancestors. It was hard now to hide his overwhelming happiness ot see her, to have become so enraptured by her so quickly and to feel such passionate stirrings. It was almost intoxicating, overwhleming and maddening at the same time.**

**"You're leaking into the psi rapport. It's like you're talking aloud," Dani said, blushing slightly. "I think it's because that demon is out of you. Your psi shielding isn't as strong."**

**"Sorry," Carlos rasped with a weak smile and she pointed at a small hollowed seashell full of water. He nodded thanks and drank it down.**

**"We're next to a river, about a hundred yards down. If you want to bathe. No offense but you might want to. Get some more water to drink. I think Marat put a poison on his axe that you got a taste of when he cut you. Not fatal but it knocked you on your ass for a week."**

**"A week? We've been here that long? Where is here by the way? We've been here for a week?"**

**"Marat says that the X-Men were eight thousand miles to the east. He's not big on metaphors so I'm assuming that there's a portal about five thousand miles that way."**

**"You crossed three thousand miles in the week it took us to find you?"**

**"Try four months by my calculations. I was doing about 30 miles a day."**

**Carlos shook his head. "Is there any reason why he kidnapped you and dumped you out here? I mean he did say he was your husband."**

**"After an adventure with the New Mutants, I spent some time in Asgard to heal from the battle. When I got back I went to see Xavier and he got me into SHIELD training to go undercover in the Mutant Liberation Front. Then I was in X Force, then teaching at the Institute for awhile and now here with the Sanctuary team. No one bothered to ask me how long I was in Asgard. Time of course moving different there than Earth. Also I'm a Valkyrie so I don't age as I would've or should've when I was New Mutant."**

**Carlos took that all in slowly. "How many years, Dani? I, too have lived a long life, I won't be as shocked as the others would be."**

**"My estimation? A little under two hundred. When I got back to Earth and to Xavier, I was in deep shock. I thought everyone was dead. It was almost a hundred years in Asgard before I even realized a hundred years had passed. I thought it had been a few years. Marat's tribe is part native American. They travel back and forth. As odd as it sounds they took me in and showed me how time was passing. Barely moments on Earth. I was gone a year. So I took advantage of the time elongation and i explored Asgard, I explored myself and the Valkyries and I joined Marat's tribe in some epic battles. We made a pact that my Cheyenne blood and tribe were to stand with him in coming wars, but I got an opportunity to go home. And then the time passage happened in Asgard but not the same for me on Earth. I was away from Marat for a little under three years in my estimation----," Dani hung her head in shame.**

**"And close to six hundred in his?" Carlos finished, doing the math.**

**"Yes. This land looks like a desert with a river and a few oasis but it used to be fertile land. Imagine rolling hills and mountains, full of millions of people. Something happened to Marat's people, his tribe. Millions were killed. And I wasn't here as a emissary of Hela, the goddess of Death, I could've helped fight off whatever happened. So he's punishing me."**

**"Is he Asgardian? Is this Asgard?"**

**"No, He was born a Sioux child five hundred years ago on Earth and then somehow his people found a portal to one of the ancillary dimensions connected to Asgard. We're in what used to be the continent of Alare. The war happened, his tribe was wiped out. I think though that the portal he hinted at will probably have a population around it. Most of them did when I was here before. They'll let me use it but the walk, the trek to the portal is chastisement for breaking my world. Marat isn't evil or mean, just prideful. This continent is five times the size of North America, which is why so many Native Americans fled here when the White man came from Europe on our world. Marat's punishment of me is more of symbolic."**

**"Such a prideful man will be easy twistings for the Beast within him now."**

**"I know," Dani sighed. "What worries me more is what happens if marat comes back here, to his people?"**

**"Why would that matter?"**

**"Think about it, Carlos. He is the undisputed leader of a tribe that is comprised of five nations of tribes that left America over one thousand years ago. You see desert and a few trees, like an African veldt. But further in-continent there are millions of my people. Of his people. Hundreds of millions. Do you think North america, Earth itself could survive an invasion of five hundred million warriors lead by a possessed Marat? All immortal, all strong and impervious to anything but other superhumans? How many superhumans do you think there are in America. Mutants included, able to fight, launch a resistance? Maybe a thousand if push came to shove. Say ten thousand so that North America doesn't sound like a punk. The US military wouldn't stand a chance, any damage they could do would be light compared to the carnage in total."**

**"The Beast then has picked the perfect vessel," Carlos whispered in horror.**

**Paris, France:**

**Magma and Akasa stood quietly in the now empty dance hall that only hours earlier had been filled with hundreds of revelers, interspersed with Misery's vampire cult. She watched as the left side of Akasa's face shone with a deep infinity symbol, the signia of telepaths she'd noted. He calmly went into the corridor that he'd been separated from Tran in.**

**"Gone. Tran was trapped here and then I sense he-----split apart. Was shattered apart," Akasa said sadly, the two of them had been one, the disembodied spirit giving him strength and reassurance in the application of his telepathic powers. **

**"And Karma?" Magma asked grimly, already suspecting the answer.**

**"I don't sense her anywhere. I've expanded my search into the lower catacombs, no one is there either. She's either been taken away or was killed."**

**Magma shook her head, drawing her crimson cloak closer around her. "Shan and Tran have foiled death many times over. I doubt they're dead. We have to assume that they've been taken prisoner by Misery's cult."**

**Akasa nodded. "I hope so. I would rather that than they be dead. But what can we do from here? Go to Warren's squad in Madrid? Shadowcat's wherever they are? Back to the Sanctuary base?"**

**Magma looked at him appraisingly. "You are a telepath, yes?"**

**"Yes. I'm just learning through. I manipulate the psionic energy lattices a lot easier. I can move along them. I need training, thats what I was hoping for from the X-Men."**

**"Weren't we all," Magma shrugged almost bitterly, her eyes focusing off in the distance for a moment and then returning to rest on his face. "What if I told you I knew of a process to train you faster? Faster than anything done before? Well, done only once before. Would you trust me? Would you trust that as the Red Queen of the Hellfire Club, the members I know hold allegiance to me, would help you and not harm you?"**

**Akasa shrugged. "I trust you, Amara."**

**Magma smiled. "Good. We're in no shape to confront Misery's cult now but in a week's time, we will be. That I promise you. We'll burn that undead bitch to ashes. The Hellfire Club has resources that the X-Men have yet to explore implementing."**

**European Airspace:**

**The Avery, under a cloaking field sped over England, deeper into eastern Europe, as the X-Men sat aboard, tense. After three days of searching with the Avery's sensors, they had found an energy expenditure signature much like Quantum's. Their second battle with the man would not allow for any quarter. They knew it would in all likelihood lead to killing him, he was too dangerous to be alive. The fact that the energy trail lead to Latveria, homeland of the infamous Dr. Victor Von Doom was even more menacing. They'd been arguing about their approach in the hour long flight from New York.**

**"I've dealt with him before, people. In a roundabout way he saved my life when I was discorporating into nothingness. He's twisted but he's honorable," Shadowcat assured. "I don't think he would throw in with Quantum. Not a mass murderer, it's not his style."**

**"Dr. Doom is one of the greatest supervillains on the planet and you want us to believe that he's just going to help us find and neutralize Quantum?" Northstar snickered. "I refuse to be that naive, even if he did help you when his own interests were attainable as well, Katherine."**

**"The Magneto reemergence has flipped the whole planet out, we have to put a hard cap on Quantum and fast. Even Dom can't want someone of that kind of power walking around unchecked," Spike offered. **

**"I agree with Kitty and Cecelia. A villain he may be but he is also a nobleman," Monet said flatly, as if that said it all. "He is _noblese oblige_."**

**"What the fuck is that?" Paulie smirked.**

**Monet rolled her eyes at his vulgarity. "Essentially it means that he is an honorbale monarch, an honorable nobleman above all else. He will not see honor in Quantum's attack on New York. It would be too base for him to even associate with. Quantum may be hiding in Latveria but he is not allied by it. I would stake my life on that."**

**"You will be," Bobby said darkly from the corner of the cabin.**

**"I think Quantum is trying to take over a country, his mercenary profile would suggest that. Without restrictions on his powers, what better place then a subjugated country like Doom's?" Spike reminded.**

**"We can only hope that one destroys the other," Northstar shrugged.**

**"ETA to energy signature near Castle Von Doom in twelve minutes," Peter announced over his shoulder from the pilot's seat. Shadowcat turned around to look out the cockpit window, the rolling mountains of Latveria were visible in the distance.**

**"How's the cloaking field holding up? Doom has some of the best air space detection equipment known to humans. I wouldnt' be surprised if he's stolen some alien tech along the way," Shadowcat said checking the sensors.**

**"The Avery's designs are based not on just Shi'ar technology----this technology is from the Khan Dimension and of a higher grade. It is based on Shi'ar designs but it is ultimately greater," Peter said proudly as they came in closer to Castle Von Doom. "We've been crusing on solar energy converted into wind thrust for the past five minutes. We're invisible to even the naked eye----cfor all intents and purposes, we're a strong tailwind blowing over the country ten thousand feet high."**

**"He's going to be pissed that we got in this way but I want to keep you and the ship in our side pocket as a hidden card. Can you beam us down? Into the castle itself?" Shadowcat asked.**

**"It's not easy because the energy expenditure while we're running so low energy but I'll do so and then find a place to land in the country," Peter said as the X-Men grouped back to the transporter panels.**

**"Energize!" Spike giggled.**

**"I wanted to say that," Hardcore laughed as they vanished.**

**A moment later Shadowcat, Spike, Hardcore, Iceman, Northstar, and M appeared in the oppulent throne room of Castle Von Doom.**

**There was a slim dark haired man in a dark brown suit standing officiously staring at them. "I am Henri, the Master will have an audience with you shortly."**

**"Master? I am not calling him Master!" Spike muttered.**

**"Dr. Doom knows we're here?" Shadowcat said in shock.**

**"The Master knows _everything_," the man said as if it were both obvious and solemn. "He was aware of your intent once you entered our airspace."**

**"So much for high tech, eh?" Northstar chuckled.**

**"Dr. Doom must employ mystical sensors as well," M shrugged.**

**"That I do, Ms. St. Croix," Dr. Doom boomed as he walked out regally from behind the throne and rested his armor clad arm on it. His eyes, intense and penetrating seemed to blaze from behind his face plate and Shadowcat noticed that his armor was more rustic, less metal. Instead there were metal gloves and gauntlets, a face plate and swirling cloaks. There was a stronger element of the mystical to the man, she'd read in some updated file that he'd been trapped on an alternate Earth for a year and changed.**

**Henri dropped to one knee in obeisance then stood and left quickly.**

**"And what brings you back to my lands, Katherine?" Doom smiled, the lower half of his face actually exposed. His chin, strong and jaunting as it held firm purposeful lips, she couldn't help wondering how badly scarred his face was, how handsome he might've once been.**

**"We're hunting a dangerous mutant," she explained, slightly uncomfortable with his familiarity with her, owing to the fact that the X-Men had once come to him for aid when she was injured.**

**"Jack Quantum," Doom nodded as he casually sat on his throne, the dais several feet higher than where the X-men stood before him. "I've been aware of him for some time now. I never expected Xavier to set him free, to release the mental bonds he placed on the man. But then again, Xavier has always been an idealistic fool in my opinion."**

**"He didn't. Quantum merged with another being, a sort of telepathic energy being. Channel, a mutant serial killer that the X-Men have been trying to bring to justice."**

**"Ah, the web is even more intricate," Doom nodded as if that explained everything. "I take it the incident in New York was Quantum then? The reports were so sketchy and all witnesses to the battle, dead. Except for your team, yes? They attributed it to Magneto again, that he had lost his head," Doom chuckled at his own pun but instead of it being a relaxed moment it was very dark, like one god musing the death of another. There was an element of both respect and an understanding of the possibilities of his own death one day.**

**"Yes," Shadowcat nodded, she could sense her team becoming restless with this train of conversation. None of them were used to dealing with men like Doom and Magneto, men who'd wrenched power and victory from the hands of Fate dozens of times. You had to be completely upfront with them, never insult their intelligence. Show them respect. Ok, maybe Paulie knew how to deal with men like these, she thought darkly to herself.**

**"What makes you think he's come here?" Doom asked. "A man of such power would know that Latveria is not for the plucking, that I would easily have means to defeat such a being, no matter the destruction he's wrought."**

**"Our sensors on our ship are tuned to him. We picked up his energy signature. He may've fled here because it's safe or to usurp your throne," Shadowcat said calmly. She couldn't tell if Doom knew of Quantum's whereabouts or not. If he knew of their presence he must know about Quantum's.**

**Doom went perfectly still for several long moments, slowly studying them, his hands steepled. He stood up suddenly and shook his head. "He is not in my lands. Leave. Good day." He turned to exit the stage, emerald cloak whipping through the air when Hardcore suddenly erupted with energy and flew towards him.**

**"Paulie, no!' Shadowcat shouted.**

**"Look, you son of a bitch, Quantum killed a lot of people! We're searching this Slavic inbred mole hill of yours until we're satisfied that he's not here!" Hardcore was halfway across the great hall when suddenly he slammed into an energy field. He tumbled through it but his gauntlets shutdown and he dropped like a stone to the floor. **

**Doom looked at him, calmly, almost curious but in no way startled or frightened. "You X-Men have made a grievous error. Take your leave or I will remove you."**

**Shadowcat had wanted to avert a confrontation with Doom, he was too canny and powerful to take on when they might have to fight Quantum soon after. She was about to order the X-Men to stand down, though they were all moving closer to the force field, itching to attack when the explosion outside went off.**

**Actually it was more of a flash of light and then an explosion and even Doom was startled as he hurried to one of the large stone openings in the wall and looked out.**

**"Come a running!" Peter yelled over the comm links and M and Northstar were the first out of the windows on their side of the force field. That had been their prearranged signal when Peter located Quantum as the team confronted/distracted Doom. **

**"Damn you insufferable mutants!" Doom roared as he turned back to the X-Men and snatched Hardcore up from the ground as if he were a gnat. "Do you have any idea how long it has taken me to clone my herald?"**

**"Clone a herald?" Iceman said and there was another flashing explosion from outside. **

**"You insipid genetic accidents have ruined years of careful gene splicing!" Doom raged and hurled Hardcore back through the force field and then stormed out of the throne room.**

**"I think we made a boo boo," Spike muttered to Shadowcat as they helped Hardcore stand up.**

**"M, tell me what's going on out there!" Shadowcat yelled into her comm link.**

**M hovered in mid air staring in shock down at the crater several miles away from Castle Doom, Northstar next to her. The Avery was laying upside down, an explosion from underground having turned it over. In the center of the crater kneeled a grey skinned, humanoid figure. He looked up at M and Northstar with blazing eyes, teeth gritted in savage rage. His face was clearly alien, his cracking flesh seemed dull and gray colored.**

**"Doom was gene splicing and he's resurrected Terrax the Tamer, former herald of Galactus. Oh, and Peter's quantum energy scans woke him up. He's not happy," M relayed. "In fact, I would call him down right pissed."**

**"GIVE ME DOOM!!" Terrax roared, the earth around him swirling up, his terra manipulating abiliies causing a maelstorm.**

**"Oh, and he wants Doom," M added. **

**Venice, Italy:**

**Amara stood quietly in the underground laboratory of the Hellfire Club. Sebsastian Shaw looked at her appraisingly, half a dozen scientists were strapping Akasa down to metal bed that was then lowered into a twenty foot high clear glass tank full of bubbling liquids.**

**"How did you get him to so readily agree to this process? Is he a fool or desperate for control?" Sebastian chuckled. "His scores show high psi abilities but unrefined. You say he's done conduit work before?"**

**"Yes, for Holy Mother the Earth Brood Queen. He wants to be an asset to the X-Men. As the Brood Queens former lens he knows we distrust him. I was checking through some of my Hellfire Club accessible material and I found this process. I thought it might help him, strengthen him," Amara shrugged. "I also need more pieces."**

**"Elizabeth Braddock wasn't too thrilled about it. She initially felt violated with what our esteemed Black Rook, the Mandarin, did with her. That and Shinobi. Shinobi always was creative. Imprinting him with a Hand ninja's essence is risky. The Mandarin found Psylocke uncontrollable," Sebastian reminded. "Do you think you'll be able to control this one?"**

**"I have every confidence that the psionic conduit mutant power he seems to possess will allow an imprinting on him that will hold and more importantly, I'll have a Red Rook of my own," Amara smiled.**

**"You'll also owe the Mandarin for the use of this process. He's an often absent but still respected member."**

**"And what will his price be?"**

**"That is the risk of the Hellfire Club, my dear. In order to strengthen your place on the board you inherently leave yourself vulnerable to either attack or co-opting."**

**"Any suggestions?" Amara asked, licking her lips nervously as he watched Raphael slowly go into unconsciousness and the ninja telepaths sit around the top of the container, the air masks and desensitization fluids and drugs now swirling to life in the container. Raphael looked at her with a brief nod and she felt a slight telepathic touch of a smile from him. For a brief moment she got the disturbing feeling that it wasn't she who had manipulated him into the tank but he who had got her to do it to him.**

**But that didn't make any sense? Why would he? He was just a young mutant teenager from San Madre, what possible plans could he have that would require the telepathic skills and training a ninja imprinted onto his mind would afford him?**

**Sebastian picked up a glass of champagne and smiled. "My suggestion is that you prepare for the ball because this move has been your second in such a short tenure that has brought you to the attention of every other piece on the board, lady Amara. Fame is a two sided sword. You've relished the expediency of power, now prepare for its' bite."**


	16. Guess Who

X-Men: Sanctuary 

**Issue # 16**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

**Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?**

**Roster:**

**Black Bishop**

**Deathbird**

**Frenzy**

**Iceman**

**M**

**Magma**

**Northstar**

**Paulie**

**Peter Rasputin, Jr.**

**Akasa**

**Psyche**

**Shadowcat**

**Spike**

**Madrid, Spain:**

**Frenzy stood toe to toe with Marat, their hands clutched as they both brought their considerable strength to bear, each trying to topple the other. Frenzy tried to ignore his flashing eyes, full of mystical vehemence from the demon inside of him but instead on his muscles on his bare chest above his loin cloth and chaps---she was trying to anticipate how he would move next. His moves seemed often slightly aikido in origin, more tossing and dodging then direct contact blows. She was personally getting sick and tired of facing the man, each time he seemed to get more and more skilled at beating them, he was a smart enemy, learning from their previous encounters.**

**"You are strong mutant, Frenzy," Marat chuckled. "Not many a being have stood under the pressure of my strength brought to bear. Though Earthen born over the centuries I have toughened into one of the strongest amongst Asgardians."**

**"Fascinating," Frenzy grimaced through gritted teeth. "Did they ever teach you to shut the hell up during a fight? I've noticed that Asgardians have a propensity to verbosity."**

**Marat hesitated at the insult and Frenzy suddenly yanked upwards, pulling him up and over her, into the direct streaming blasts of Deathbird's javelins. Before he could recover upon landing, Deathbird blasted him again and then dove down and plunged both javelin into his chest.**

**"Jesus woman!" Warren yelled from behind.**

**"What would you have us do? Continue to destroy this city trying to subdue him?" Deathbird demanded of him as he landed the Shi'ar aircar in the small courtyard the battle had come to. **

**"Is he dead?" Warren asked, though clearly still disgusted at the warriors methods.**

**"No," Frenzy observed leaning down to look at the crumpled, bloodied unconscious figure. "He is healing fast though. What are we doing with him now?"**

**"Get him aboard, already taken care of that part," Warren grinned.**

**Ten minutes later they were back at Carlos' penthouse apartment where half a dozen of Carlos' private militia were waiting. They calmly bound Marat into heavy technological and obviously mystical restraints then turned to Carlos who nodded.**

**"These two were touched by the Beast but your mystical sensors should show him in this being," Ng said as Carlos, having shape shifted into his employers visage with his Skrull abilities.**

**"It does, sir," the militia captain said uneasily. "And it no longer shows it in either of these two X-Men." The captain nodded at Warren and Deathbird.**

**"Good, now if you'll excuse us, my guests and I would like to rest," Carlos nodded. "I'll be down later to check on Marat in the sub-basement. Keep him confined as per Protocol A."**

**"Yes, Mr. Allegra," with that the militia left and an exhausted Carlos first closed the door then slumped against it, reverting back to a badly beaten Ng.**

**"Excellent job, Ng," Warren said as he helped the slim Asian man to a sofa.**

**Deathbird sneered. "A deceptive Skrull trick, we should've fought them to the last man. Made them cower and bow before us."**

**"And people say I had a bad attitude?" Frenzy sighed, chucking a thumbing at Deathbird.**

**"Ng, how much longer will these talismans from Carlos' library make us invisible to the militia's sensors?" Warren asked, holding open his hand and showing the glowing coins that both he and Deathbird held.**

**"I would expect that it is more of a matter of no longer being quite so illuminated to them. Hopefully Captain Fontaine will be satisfied with Marat as a prisoner and a vessel of the Beast until Master Carlos' return," Ng smiled, proud of his ability to conjure such small but important magic.**

**"Speaking of which, where have Carlos and Danielle gone? I can't feel any of them in the rapport anymore. It's as if they're dead," Deathbird said.**

**"Back to the dimension I would expect Marat sent her to initially. Though I did get the mental impression from Carlos before they completely vanished that he could bring them back, it would just take time. The lack of that mystical demon within him seems to have slowed down his mystical powers but not obliterated them completely. They should pop back up in a few days, hopefully or we'll have to bring Talisman in on this," Warren explained as he hefted Marat's mystical war axe.**

**"Do we sit and wait then?" Frenzy asked, reclining comfortably on a sofa with a grin.**

**Warren shook his head. "Two huge threats have come up while i was receiving the airship that we've been data linked about. The mutant Quantum has devastated part of Manhattan and Magneto is alive and on Madripoor."**

**"Magneto alive?!" Frenzy barked in disbelief. "Oh, come on! The man was beheaded! How?"**

**"Magneto was masquerading as the mutant Xorn. I think the general consensus is that some mutant was used as his patsy while he made his escape. However New York, between the Magneto attack and Quantum's, is in bad shape. It's not a good time for us to go there and assist with the clean up and burying of close to one hundred thousand known victims. Shadowcat's team will give a holler if they need us but they're hunting down Quantum. The world has dozens of nuclear submarines surrounding Madripoor and examining this light band Magneto has created around the Earth. We're on standby for that too. Amara's team had a run in with the Misery cult but wasn't able to completely bring it down, they proved to be tougher than the IRC lead us to believe. Karma and Tran are missing and Nemesis is seriously injured in a Parisian hospital, it turned out that the cult are vampires."**

**"Wow, you're better than TiVo," Frenzy teased Warren.**

**"The tide would've gone differently had we been there!" Deathbird hissed, twirling her javelins confidently.**

**"Possibly. Amara has taken Raphael to Venice where the annual Hellfire Club ball is to take place. She felt that Paris was too hot for them and that the Misery cult was deeply interested in Raphael's psionic abilities. The Hellfire Club, though not one of my favorite places does provide a large measure of protection to her and anyone with her. I think that's where we should be off to as well. We'll give Amara back up at the Ball as well as possibly even see how we can maneuver our way back into Misery's group. Ng will be apprised of our locations at all times for when Carlos and Dani return, most likely in his library's mystical wards and then we'll move on to investigating the missing electronics tankers in Japan," Warren explained.**

**"What about Magneto and this Quantum guy, we just can't let them both get away with what they're doing and have done," Frenzy asked. "I worked for Magneto for a long time, I respected him, would've given my life for him but he's gone around the bend since the destruction of Genosha. He'll get us all put into concentration camps or worse if he keeps posturing against the entire world."**

**"Agreed, Jo. I'm hoping that by working our way slowly to japan, we'll be on hand for the taking down of him in Madripoor when the time comes. He killed Phoenix. There are nearly four squads of X-Men from Sanctuary to the Institute looking to get a piece of him."**

**Morristown, New Jersey:**

**Leo and Bernie had grown up together. They'd done things to attain their positions that only presidents and dictators could understand. There were organizations, goals, and needs that required a ruthlessness that went beyond simply killing someone. But they had never seen carnage on this level.**

**"There's no ethics anymore," Leo shrugged, heartily forking his salad into his mouth.**

**"Ethics?" Bernie questioned, taking another sip of his wine.**

**"Ethics. We built an organization. A syndicate that sure we had to divvy up amongst other Families but there were ethics. Codes of conduct. These mutants, they aren't not normal, they're lacking in ethics."**

**Bernie nodded. "Gotcha. We have some of these mutants ourselves but we'd still get wiped out if this went into a full war. Our mutants are ready and powerful. Fucking powerful but they lack training and leadership. We have nothing to hold them down with. You have to hold your pieces down, Leo."**

**"I agree. We making any headway on locating Paulie? Paulie Provenzano? He owes me. He owes me big."**

**Bernie shifted uncomfortably. "I've never seen a house under more surveillance than that Xavier Institute, Leo. Between that and X Corp it looks like a Federale festival. I got people on it but if he's affiliated with the X-Men it must be out of one of their international groups. There's the group rumored to be in Australia, they supposedly stayed after they made the whole fucker vanish for a few minutes. But I'm running thin on people. The destruction of so much in New York has got us pulled tight."**

**"Manhattan is starting to look like a war zone. We need to look for a set-up someplace else. They made Australia vanish? Like for real and not one of them David Copperfield tricks? We need a set-up."**

**"Tom won't like that."**

**At the mention of the name they both became somber.**

**"If we make a move, it's war, you know. We'll be giving Tom the high hat."**

**"That might also cut into ethics," Bernie chuckled darkly.**

**Leo nodded. "Hypothetically speaking?"**

**"Speak."**

**"Tom? Could we? Give the high hat. I mean the real one?"**

**Bernie calmly lit a cigarette and sipped his wine again. "The Families like him. The question isn't can we, it's if we can and stay alive."**

**"We need a scapegoat."**

**"We need Paulie. Tom and him got bad blood."**

**"We need Paulie. He ain't got no ethics."**

**"Ok, so take your mutants and get me Paulie."**

**Madripoor:**

**Magneto sat calmly on the floor in the Royal Palace grand ball room. He had been sitting for over an hour, close to four hundred military troops surrounding the hall outside but afraid to come in. There were energy sparks sizzling from him harmlessly into the air. No one knew how he'd gotten in but Viper had been called from her meeting with the world's Superpowers at a secluded military base over an hour away. She'd reluctantly rushed back, he hadn't killed her at their last discussion, the hope was he wouldn't do so now.**

**Viper stepped calmly into the grand ball room, in an emerald body suit and gloves as always. But the technology woven into the fabric had been updated considerably. At the whisper of a thought command from her she could put up a magnetic null field that would repel all forms of magnetism, she could also active her teleportation ring to escape and most importantly she had on her waist belt the smallest tactical nuke on the planet. It would take out less than half a mile but the world hoped that if and when the moment came, Viper could be trusted to eliminate it's greatest enemy.**

**Viper was still weighing the value of being the woman who killed the most hated man on Earth of the twentieth century next to Hitler. She was also the variable of two seconds she would have to teleport out as soon as the belt was activated. The only comforting part was that the belt wouldn't be coming with her but would it be enough to kill this mutant if necessary to use?**

**"Do you mind that I've taken up residence here? The Royal Hotel is...gone," Magneto said calmly in his deep baritone.**

**Viper hesitated at the vicious way he referred to his disintegration of the hotel and nearly a thousand people in it a few days ago.**

"You disappeared off of all ground surveillance, satellites, I didn't have the opportunity to invite you to better accommodations," she answered.

**"I have a mutant who handles transport for me now," Magneto lied and then slowly stood up. He wasn't displeased that she visibly flinched at his moving.**

**_Admire her, Jack but remember she is a dangerous woman. Perhaps the most dangerous woman on Earth_, Channel warned Quantum from within.**

**_Yes, I know. I've had the pleasure and challenge of fighting on both sides of battle with and against her in my mercenary days_, Jack chuckled mentally to himself. **

**_Do you think she'll recognize you_? Channel asked. **

**_No, one of the lower level uses of my quantum field is the manipulation of light perception, we look like Magneto almost to the point of our worldwide broadcast, even in person._**

**"You should've called ahead, I would've had my people lay out a proper luncheon for us, Viper smiled coolly.**

**"Instead of military surrounding this whole palace and even this room? How many submarines have nuclear missiles targeted at this mansion right now, I wonder?" Magneto mused darkly.**

**"We are the one nation on Earth with no extradition laws because of our.....residents appetites and pasts. However your presence here has my Legal Minister answering half a dozen legal requests from countries all over the planet challenging that. The only person I know who's drawn this much attention in the past fifty years was a high ranking Nazi general. But surely you must admit that eventually the world's powers will overtly or covertly break down our legal protections and simply storm the isle?"**

**"I would say in a week," Magneto nodded. "But that won't happen."**

**"You plan to leave?" Viper couldn't help but ask eagerly.**

**"I will require at least two more weeks asylum here."**

**"You want them to attack my nation? Why?"**

**"Oh, they'll be poised to attack in less than three days with my next feat." Magneto raised his hands and a light energy band appeared, he seemingly bent it into a perfect circle and an image of the Earth filled it. An example of what he'd done to the Earth at large.**

**Viper while impressed with the display of light bending abilities was even more worried at when Magneto had acquired these new and varied powers. She watched as the energy band around his Earth image been to flash and over her ear comm link she heard frantic reports.**

**Across the entire planet, the energy band had solidified. **

**Without regard to physical matter, walls, buildings, mountains in it's path it suddenly became solid, cutting through everything.**

**"Now my mutant children have way to get here!' Magneto chuckled. "Their very own bridge! We, the mutants of Earth respectfully ask you Viper, Prince of Madripoor for asylum. You'll note a sizeable transfer of funds from several off shore Genoshan national accounts to yours."**

**"Oh. Wow," was all she could manage.**

**In retrospect of the moment hours later, Viper thought she should've set off the nuke right then and there. **

**Venice, Italy:**

**Amara stood at the window of the villa the Hellfire Club had provided for her outside of the main city. It seemed that the Club owned a dozen such vilals around a large cathedral where the ball would be held. The furniture and curtains and even wallpaper were all deep, but subtle hues of red to match her title. There were half a dozen extra bedrooms for her "pieces" and she felt most nervous at this. What pieces did she possess? So far just a Red Rook.**

**She turned on the terrace and Raphael was standing in the far doorway. The process had changed him subtlety, nothing she could exactly out her finger on. He walked like a shadow, like a ghost now, she never knew when he was in a room but she suspected he used his psi abilities to literally arrive at her thoughts. He stood more confidently, more self-possessed, less of the hesitation of youth for someone so young. He was barely out of his teens but now he moved in deep burgundy slacks and shirt as if they were water and he'd been born into wealth and not a jungle village.**

**"There are hundreds of Hellfire Club members filling up through the villas and the city itself. Hotels, private residences but there is definitely a full mental emanation occurring with them as the theme. The thought of Magneto is very strong too," he remarked calmly.**

**"Can you now sense the whole city's thoughts?"**

**Raphael hesitated for a fraction of a second then spoke. "The process refined my control more than enhanced it. The Akasa oneness and psi expansion has given me a firm telepathic training. Much like what I imagine Xavier would've done over years, in a week's time."**

**"So now I and the Sanctuary team have a telepath of our own. But which do you hold allegiance to first, Raphael? The Queen who bestowed this gift on you or the X-Men who brought you to me?" Amara asked carefully. There was almost a full moment of silence between them and then he spoke.**

**"Do you even have to ask?" Raphael smiled gently and before she could press further the doorbell chimed. "Guests come to see the Red Queen."**

**Amara didn't miss the fact that he'd waited until the doorbell had rung before answering. A perfect telepathic conversational dodge. A telepath as her right hand had seemed like a good idea in theory but in practice she realized that it meant no secrets from him and at the same time, he was a repository of secrets.**

**Amara could see why Sage had both betrayed Sebastian and why he'd tried to kill her.**

**Deep Space:**

**She was surprised to be alive.**

**In many ways she was surprised to even be.**

**Three hooded figures kneeled before her. High order telepaths. With no mouths and deep purple skin like those that followed her brother Canaan around. His aide de camps, she supposed. Royalty bred so many official positions for others that it was hard to keep track of them all.**

**She sat up on the large bed, her body wrapped in thick silk straps. Healing medicines smell slightly acidic in them. He'd returned to heal her from the Insanity Plague given her by Cassandra Nova in Charles' body. The thought of Xavier brought both a deep fear and a slightly sense of detachment. The telepaths doing she suspected. To disassociate her from the consort who's body had driven her insane. She wanted to thank them but then the two large doors to her room opened.**

**"Sister," he said calmly. All stately silver armor plating and crimson robes.**

**"Brother," she answered.**

**"They tell me you are finally stable and cured. Is this true?" he asked.**

**"Would I know?" Lilandra answered pensively and they both shared a dark smile.**

**"The throne is mine now, you understand."**

**"I do. As it should be. Cal'syee is not appropriate, never has been and D'Ken......well, I've returned from where he resides mentally."**

**"Succinctly put," Canaan nodded. "The Senate voted for your exile and death."**

**Lilandra took a deep breath. "Cured to die?"**

**"I had the whole Senate disintegrated. But I cannot do that to two hundred billion people under the Throne. You must be exiled, sister."**

**Lilandra took another deep breath. Ruthless and mercy in the same breath. Her younger brother had changed in the decade he'd been gone. But hadn't they all? "What then is to become of me?"**

**"The price on your head is alternately high and dangerous to take. I need you to be safe with your loyalists. A civil war could break out. It would shatter what little is left of the Empire. And I have much to repair," Canaan strolled casually to her bedside. "You will be safe on Earth. Its not to ever be stepped on or the solar system around it crossed by a Shi'ar or any of our allies. I will post sentries to always protect you there. As is fit a royal exile."**

**Lilandra considered this for a moment. Then her inner sense drifted to the walls around her. "I'm aboard a ship? We're on our way?" **

**"Actually, we're on the dark side of the Terran Sol system planet know as Jupiter, hidden from their sensors. You must contact them to announce your arrival. You have twelve Terran hours to prepare yourself and your cabinet for earth fall," Canaan leaned close and kissed her cheek. "Fair thee well, sister."**

**"Canaan? My cabinet? The loyalists? How many of them are there? How many chose voluntary exile from the Shi'ar forever?"**

**"Both chose and were chosen. Seditious factions could not be allowed to stay."**

**"How many?"**

**"I believe there were close to two hundred deaths during the journey here. That would leave you with roughly forty million subjects," Canaan said curtly then swept out of the room.**

**"Forty million?" Lilandra murmured. "They will never give us land, space."**

**The three telepaths looked at her as one and a solid image appeared in her mind. **

**Neramani, they said to her. She was perplexed at her name being said until they opened her mind further. And showed her.**

**Sanctuary:**

**Jessica Drew watched the large island of Neramani, as it was being called, being formed by the green and yellow energy beam cutting through the atmosphere form the starship above. Peaks and valleys were being lifted and constructed like a computer graphic simulation. Ari stood next to her staring at the twenty foot viewer screen.**

**"It's a standard terraforming ship used to settle worlds. It essentially draws up from the ocean and ground below and sends down materials at the same time. It is a Stargate in terra formation. It won't harm your planet. In fact it's been proven to be an excellent form of settling a planet as well as mining for valuable natural resources," Ari explained.**

**"We have a population," Alex said from behind them. "Some of us even believe we have too many people here to begin with."**

**"How many will they populate it with?" Sabine asked calmly.**

**Ari's fingers danced over the viewer screen controls, re-orienting views they'd gotten from tapping into the Earth network of satellites. She opened a small computer screen and did some rough calculations. "Millions, most definitely. It's generally not done so fast. An entire planet is generally worked on for a year and then a steady flow of citizens brought in. Industries set up as civilians arrive. These are all exiles. Exiles who are loyal to Lilandra. The Empire is comprised of close to half a trillion allied beings. From the width of the land mass being formed, I would say a minimum of twenty to thirty million, if not more. It depends on how Emperor Canaan feels towards his sister. If he sees her as merely a fool, it will be a small nation. If he sees her as liability it will be as many as he can fit here, some may even overflow off of the shores."**

**Alex touched his comm link. "I've got Listeners throughout every major government and they've all reported that their leaders are contemplating a nuclear strike against the forming island. In fact I have confirmation of an emergency session of the United Nations going on right now. I know that the Avengers and SHIELD are on standby to strike. Strike against what seems to be the big question. There's the question of what it will do to the Earth to strike at the ship in orbit."**

**Ari shook her head. "It won't matter. Though exiled she is still the Empress, D'Ken was on a world who's entire resources would gladly defend him. There's at least another starship and dozens of fighters ready to protect her. She may be exiled but she is still blood Neramani. She can be another nation on your world, or the rest of the world can be razed and she'll be Queen of her own. The point is for her to be a prisoner, whether Terrans are here or not, doesn't matter. Tell your people that," Ari said darkly. "Tell them that the Shi'ar can kill more in the space it takes to launch your ballistic missiles then they could if they had a year to systematically kill everyone on this world."**

**Alex sat down in shock then slowly began relaying the message to his Listeners to relay to the world leaders.**

**"Live transmission from the starship above. It's Canaan."**

**Canaan stood calmly, shaved head, young face with ceremonial markings highlighting his eyes. His tunic and slacks fluttering gently, a deep crimson.**

**"I am Canaan Neramani of the Shi'ar. I am the new Emperor of the Shi'ar Imperium. Your world has had contact with my people on numerous occasions. Even saved us. I now give you my sister, Lilandra, former Empress. I give her to you as a gift. She will bring a new prosperity to your people, a cure for many of your medical, social and economic ills. I ask, no, I command, only one thing of you. Do not harm her. Do not harm the land I create for my sister and her entourage. If you do, I will loose upon you the wrath of the Shi'ar. The Shi'ar Imperium is made up of hundreds of worlds. Your technology is almost two hundred years behind ours. When I return, and I shall, I expect you to be a world ready to enter in the universal union that awaits you. Let Lilandra help you populate your solar system, improve your space travel, enlighten your people. I offer you my sister as an investment in your future. Be wise. Be welcoming. Or be destroyed. I'll be watching. Thank you."**

**And with that the transmission ended.**

**"I can't tell if he is a good guy or a bad one," Marrow said from behind the others.**

**"I am Shi'ar, Marrow and neither can I," Hunter sighed next to her.**


	17. Dr NoAllegiances Pt 1

X-Men: Sanctuary 

**Issue # 17**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

**Dr. No**

**Roster:**

**Black Bishop**

**Deathbird**

**Frenzy**

**Psyche**

**Iceman**

**M**

**Magma**

**Northstar**

**Hardcore**

**Peter Rasputin, Jr.**

**Akasa**

**Shadowcat**

**Spike**

**Xavier Institute:**

**Emma woke up slowly as all telepaths learned to. One had to maintain mental shielding before simply coming awake. She'd learned that years ago but the insistent buzzing of her comm link forced her to rush through the reassembly of her casual mental shields. She snatched up the ear patch from the night stand and sighed tiredly. While becoming one of the foremost emissaries of the mutant race was an honor and worthy position for her, it was exhausting. She'd done more juggling of mutants and humans in the past year than she had in her lifetime. **

**She was startled by the voice and actually snapped to attention.**

**"Sir," she replied to the President of the United States and drew on her silk white robe and hurried over to the viewer screen.**

**"Sorry to rouse you but we have an.....issue. An issue of a magnitude------we have refugees."**

**"Refugees? San Madre? That's all taken cared of?" Emma said confused.**

**"No, Emma," Nick Fury of SHIELD said as his image came onto the viewer screen with the President's. The split screen became a triad split. **

**"What the fuck?!" Emma gasped then caught herself. "Sorry."**

**"That is the world's reaction," the President chuckled in spite of himself. "You know Empress Lilandra Neramani?"**

**"Yes. Vaguely. She is or was Charles' consort or he was hers," Emma mumbled watching as the message from Canaan about Lilandra was replayed for her. He was a fascinating individual. Being a telepath was so high end to the intuition that one developed, the body language one learned to read. He was alien so that made some of her impressions conflict but Emma could see so many things bubbling below the surface. She could almost guess some of his thoughts behind his words, his intentions. She flicked her eyes back to the viewer screen of those watching her, did they know? And if they didn't already, there was no way in Hell she could tell them what she'd discerned so far. This man was dangerous in ways that humans couldn't fathom, he had plans. Plans within plans within plans.**

**"There seems to be no conventional way to stop the matter transference beam from the starship. They're being dumped here," the President said.**

**"Dumped where?"**

**"Below India, close to five hundred miles off the western coast of Australia and a thousand miles south east of Genosha. The beam is creating a land mass the size of Greenland. Without even disturbing anything but the water, our best guess is they are using existing material from the ocean bottom along with transporting in materials to form an island. Impressive as hell. We got twenty minutes of warning to get ships and submarines out of there. The world is going crazy. Half think we're being invaded and the other half are running around in circles screaming," Fury explained.**

**"I've got every satellite and ship watching it form. Emma, they are forming a land mass to dump their exiled empress and her people," the President said in amazement. "Magneto, Genosha, the death of my Vice President, now Lilandra, Emma, I know that this isn't under your control but we----humans----citizens of the world need to know where we stand. Are human beings safe any longer? Is this even our world?" his voice was full of anguish and genuinely terror. He was suppose to be the safest man on the planet and now the planet was now no longer safe.**

**"I'm a human being too, Mr. President. The genetic quirk that makes me a mutant doesn't make me anything different than you. Part of the reason why I suspect Lilandra is exiled here is because of her commitment to protecting us from universal forces. She will be an invaluable ally to us all. Think of the technology she brings. Take her as an ally, Mr. President, she always has been."**

**"And then?" Nick Fury asked skeptically.**

**"Don't piss her off. She's run hundreds of worlds since she was a teenager. This is a supreme demotion to her, I expect. I know I'd be pissed to wake up managing a McDonald's tomorrow."**

**Both men laughed and then the President asked. "And the X-Men? Where do you stand on this? Can I count on them? It's always been the human/mutant issue but now it's coming down to how I protect a world."**

**Emma took a deep breath, because that was what this call was ultimately about. Allegiance. She was about to speak for the X-Men as a whole.**

**"She has always been an ally of the X-Men, we'll act as her guides, her Earth emissaries. If she gets out of hand, if her people become a threat, we'll behead her and I'll personally make sure it's the right head this time."**

**Latveria:**

**Shadowcat and Spike sat behind a boulder in the middle of battlefield where the X-Men had engaged Terrax the Tamer.**

**"Ok, this is stupid," Spike muttered.**

**"What is?"**

**"Well, Prof. Doom----."**

**"Doctor Doom," Shadowcat corrected as a wave of earth went overhead, carrying M who promptly was smashed into the ground then flew back into the fray.**

**"What is he a doctor of?" Spike demanded sarcastically as there was an energy splash around the rock of Hardcore's gauntlet blasts.**

**"Well, he's Victor Von Doom," Shadowcat replied calmly, grabbing her hand and making them intangible as the earth shifted and tons of rocks shifted where they'd been to another part of the field, when the wave had stopped, she made them tangible again.**

**"Yes, I got that part. The whole castle and booming Frank Langhella voice and energy. Big Daddy European Phantom of No Opera with a title and a country that isn't as big as the New York. But what is he a doctor of? I'm a doctor of medicine. I guess I could be Dr. Spike, if I was some dumb ass dictator. But what could he be a doctor of? I mean he resurrected this Terrax guy from a rock, I expect? I mean he looks like a rock. Like a walking, talking rock," Spike shrugged as she put up her hands and created a psi plasma shield to protect them from shards and chips of ice that had exploded behind and above them. "I know I'm just the Dr. Crusher of this X gang but I think I deserve to know what fudgesicle funk face is a doctor of? And more importantly if I know of at least four members of the 'Friends' cast who've had a little plastic surgery done, why doesn't Vic use some of his bling bling from the national coffers to get his Darkman look fixed?"**

**There were several sonic booms behind them and then Northstar whipped by overhead and rejoined the battle, using his flight as a whip snap air concussion attack. Shadowcat considered that for a moment then smiled brightly. "Well, probably physics? Or maybe chemistry? What was Reed Richards in school for? They were in school together," Shadowcat offered.**

**"So he's Dr. Fantastic? I mean isn't it a little pretentious and kind of indicative of self esteem issues when you rule a whole country and insist that people call you doctor too? Sounds like someone has their priorities a little twisted. I mean, no judgment, just a thought."**

**"He's Mr. Fantastic. He cured me though. Doom and Richards when I was injured by the Marauders, when I couldn't get solid again." Sunspot soared down from the sky, solar blasts flung at Terrax, screaming obscenities in Portuguese.**

**"How?" Spike asked, curious as shouts and violent grunts exploded behind them, Terrax only a few feet away.**

**"A machine," Shadowcat said as she grabbed Spike's hand as Spike sent an arm sized spike through Terrax's shoulder, her spiked wristlets creating small solid holograms for her to base her shapes on.**

**"Guess they didn't set it on high," Spike smirked as they dove behind another boulder, Hardcore having launched himself into a heated fisticuff with Terrax.**

**Shadowcat shook her head. "What do you mean?"**

**"Well, you're kind of the Treasurer if you know what I mean."**

**"Treasurer?" Shadowcat was confused as Peter ran by them and used the boulder they were kneeling behind to leap into the fray, metal snares erupting from his costume.**

**"Of the Itty Bitty Titty committee," Spike chuckled.**

**Shadowcat was shocked at first then she couldn't help but laugh hysterically. "With a mouth like that, how did Prof. X ever let you onto the team?"**

**"Well, I'm a doctor. A real doctor. And I know what I'm a doctor of. You need some more rice and beans in your diet, girl. Get less shadow in that cat," Spike grinned. "I have a great recipe. But I guess we'll work that out once we finish with Tamer the Terror."**

**"Terrax the Tamer," Shadowcat corrected. "He's a former herald fo Galactus."**

**"They really need better names and you could of course explain to me what a former her, not that I have judgment about transsexuals, of the Battlestar Galactica, is doing here in Europe?"**

**"He's a clone."**

**"Oh, well that's just illegal. Though I guess it does solve that whole "I was born into the wrong body thing". I have a cousin like that----Luis----well, he's Lupe now."**

**Monet held on to Terrax's arm as he swiped her through a heavy oak tree. She continued to grasp onto him and maintained her telepathic pressure at his rather slippery mind. From what she could tell about him, he wasn't completely mentally formed, he was acting on aggressive instinct. She could sense Doom's thoughts on the periphery of the battlefield, watching them struggle with his half-formed creation. **

**Hardcore smashed his fist into Terrax's face, the gauntlets irradiated with energy, chips flying off of his rocky face. "Ok, we need him to bow down!"**

**Iceman moved in closer and began freezing deeper and deeper into the lower torso of Terrax.**

**Dr. Doom watched calmly from several hundred yards away as his creation was slowly brought to its' knees and then finally Hardcore delivered a savage blow that left Terrax unconscious. The swirl of earth, dirt and stones finally subsided and Doom calmly walked over to Shadowcat and Spike.**

**Madripoor:**

"Seems we're no longer the biggest story on the planet," Quantum smirked at his reflection that he could make out on the television screen in the Royal Palace. His private quarters were surrounded by an impenetrable force field of his own creation so that he could remove the Magneto guise without discovery. The energy field was a deep purple so that only vague images of his suite could be discerned. It was powerful enough to withstand a tactical nuke though.

**_We must speed up our plans, _Channel said calmly_. It is time to assert ourselves, to build what the Shi'ar seem to have the whim to create. The Earth itself is being divided up even as the solar system is being opened. Mutants have Genosha, they flock to us as well. But we must hurry, we must assert ourselves so that when the time comes, we possess a world of our own._**

**Latveria:**

**Dr. Doom looked out imperiously at the X-Men as half a dozen of his scientists contained the unconscious Terrax back into his container and carried him back into the lab under the field where they'd fought him.**

**"So you're using a quantum singularity to try and funnel cosmic power into this genetic clone of Terrax?" Shadowcat asked Doom calmly.**

**"That had been my intention. The Latverian top soil has never been of the best quality, Terrax will allow us to reform an entire country in a week."**

**"Let me get this straight, Mr. Doomed," Spike said wearily, "you are opening a mini black hole underground so that your people can plant and harvest more potatoes?"**

**"You will address me as Dr. Doom," he corrected imperiously.**

**"What are you a doctor of?" Spike demanded. **

**Monet interceded quickly, bowing respectfully. "We're sorry for our error, your Eminence, but you've seen the damage Quantum can do in Manhattan. We respect your sovereignty in your land but we need your help, if nothing else. Quantum threatens the planet as a whole. He's proven that he cannot control his powers and will kill without regard. He would kill innocents."**

**"Yes, that is unseemly. It lacks honor," Doom agreed after a moments thought.**

**Sunspot snorted derisively. "You would risk the planet to feed your people? That isn't honor, that's hubris gone unchecked."**

**"Fuck yeah, tin head!" Paulie snickered. "What do you know about honor?"**

**"Actually his mask is more of an iron steel polymer than tin," Peter corrected.**

**"It would be nice if we actually defeated a villain at some point in this god-awful team," Northstar sighed.**

**"Well, we sort of beat Terrax," Iceman shrugged. "Of course he's a half powered, vegetative brained clone but soon we'll be up to beating complete retards."**

**Doom glanced at Sunspot, Hardcore, Peter, Northstar and Iceman then turned his head slowly back to the female X-Men. "I take it there is a request of Doom in here?"**

**"Did he just speak of himself in the third person? Oh, that's too much!" Spike smirked.**

**Shadowcat spoke calmly. "How do you contain Terrax's quantum energy? We may have a way to kill him but we don't have a positive confirmation that will work. We need to be able to contain him as our first option."**

**Doom's eyes seemed to soften for a moment behind his metal face plate as he stared at Shadowcat appraisingly. "It is good to see you alive, Katherine. I'm glad that I was able to assist you and based upon your future gratitude I think I could give your pilot in the modified Shi'ar ship one of my extra quantum field containers. What do you say, Katherine would you be so kind as to indebt your team to me?"**

**Shadowcat glared at him as she turned to her teammates. "I can give him my word but I can't speak for everyone else. At some point Doom will ask us to help him in some fashion. I personally think it's worth it because of the damage and carnage he's done."**

**The X-men were silent and then Spike spoke up. "Kitty, you're our leader and we all know how dangerous Quantum is. Some of the best cures come from the darkest of sources. We all stand with you."**

**Shadowcat nodded and turned back to Doom. "The complete specs explained and downloaded as well as a working container. We'll also need something handheld or physical we can put on him to slow him down."**

**"There is a suit, its' made of a metallic polymer, I suspect Peter can use his abilities to put it on his body," Doom said thoughtfully. "I'd be most interested in the results and the data."**

**"You know how my powers work?" Peter asked in surprise.**

**"Peter Rasputin, I am Doom. I know everything. When your group returns to Latveria I will spend some time with you and show you the amazing possibilities that Xavier has neither the time nor comprehension to show you," with that Doom turned and walked back towards his castle in the distance.**

**Peter noticed a small glowing chip of rock on the ground and quickly picked it up. He let his power search through it for normal metal ores and found very little, instead he found a touch of the quantum singularity ready to open up if pushed a little. His mind raced through possibilities of what this could be used for, matter that could hold consciousness trapped within it had multiple purposes. **

**Venice, Italy:**

**Rigel.**

**Lucius.**

**Chaxaza.**

**All three of theme sat or stood calmly in her villas living room watching her as she watched them,**

**"We are the Unaligned," Lucius explained calmly. He was a tall thin man, in his late forties with dark auburn hair. He wasn't so much of handsome as he was striking, a slight smirk on his lips as if he were considering things wholely unpleasant or darkly desirous. Rigel stood off in the corner, close to seven feet tall and well into four hundred pounds of solid muscle but there was a calm contemplation on his face that belied his deep cinnamon skin. His eyes looked vaguely Asiatic and his hair had been cut off. Amara couldn't place what race he was and she got the impression in his expressive beige linens, that was his intention.**

**Chaxaza looked like a tart. A bustier that brought a voluminous amount of cleavage to the point of almost delivery to anyone within a foot of her. She was at least two hundred pounds but had a thin face and streaked blonde and brown hair. Her long flowing skirt and jewels and baubles on her fingers and wrists and even woven into her hair gave her a faint Gypsy look. **

**"Have they told you of us yet?" Chaxaza asked and with Amara's silence continued. "The Inner Circle to which you belong is an intensely competitive and exclusive place. To enter into that arena of the Hellfire Club, no matter one's position in the normal world, one's business accomplishments or fame, is a risk of death. Your association with the X-Men provides you more security than you could be aware. But to be Inner Circle one's life is always-----challenged. We, the Unaligned are those who financially and physically sustain the Hellfire Club and align ourselves to the Black King to maintain control of all the others."**

**"Fascinating. Almost," Amara said dryly then sat calmly on a divan, Raphael standing silently next to her. "I take it you're here for my protection or allegiance?"**

**"We are over one hundred strong in this sect alone," Rigel thundered, half growled in the corner. You have no pieces. You need us more than we need you."**

**Amara grinned slightly and then raised an eyebrow, the mental signal sent to Raphael so fast that his hand whipping out, psionic tendrils as thin as wires snapping into existence around Rigel's throat and bringing him to his knees, happening in the space of a heartbeat. Raphael raised his other hand and more psi tendrils snapped from them into Rigel's mind.**

**"Should I kill him, my Queen?" Raphael asked calmly.**

**"He's not fighting back. Why not?" Amara observed.**

**Lucius spoke up calmly though he had moved several feet away from the writhing Rigel. "You are Inner Circle. You may attack us but to attack you is like the food attacking the predator. One, we wouldn't survive the onslaught of the Inner Circle's wrath and two, it is your right to put him in his place for his disrespect."**

**Chaxaza stood up, licking her lips anxiously. "Rigel is used to getting his way because of size and bluntly, he's afraid he won't get his way any longer. There are now three Houses within the Inner Circle. Red, White and Black. The Grey House is ceremonial, more of a tie breaker than stated as necessary to exist. There are many ceremonial Houses of varying hues and allegiances. Rigel-----all of us representatives here, are here to pledge to you, Red Queen, not to antagonize you."**

**Amara smiled. "Good answer." With a nod, the psi lines vanished from Rigel and Raphael stood calmly as if nothing had occurred. Rigel stood slowly a smoldering anger and grudging respect in his eyes.**

**"My apologies, my Queen, I meant no disrespect," he whispered hoarsely.**

**"Liar," Amara grinned. "You were testing me. Willing to give your life to show your compatriots my worthiness."**

**"You possess both ruthlessness and foresight," Lucius nodded. "In three days time though, at the Hellfire Ceremony, they will ask you about your place. Your power. You will have to offer them a damn good show."**

**"They who? The Lord Cardinals?"**

**"The Imperial Cardinals. The masters of us all."**

**"In your travels, with the mutants, have you found what you'll need?" Rigel asked.**

**"What is that?" Amara asked perplexed.**

**"An army. An army that you can control?"**

**Amara was hesitant at first, she'd been building so fast in her own opinion and yet at the same time so slow compared to what the Hellfire Club was threatening her with. She was beginning to see and feel why the Inner Circle was such a dangerous place, it forced one to move decisively, ruthlessly but ultimately too fast to be anything but instinctive. Though patterned after chess pieces, the game was speeding up to the point that it undermined strategy.**

**All three walked forwarded and kneeled before her.**

**"We offer our souls and lives to you, Red Queen. We are the Unaligned but we each lead many," Lucius said somberly.**

**"Yes, I think I know where we can begin with our little draft," Amara muttered to herself.**

**Paris, France:**

**Nemesis sat in a wheelchair, her mask still on though her body was covered in bandages and casts. She looked out at the dawn over the city and thought about all that she had done in the past few months, all that she still planned to do.**

**"How are you?" Alex asked as he came into room with a bouquet of flowers. "I got here as soon as I could get Gateway to transport me. The world is going nuts with Magneto's appearance and now Neramani being created in the Indian Ocean. Did you see the news coverage?"**

**"I did," she nodded. "All of the pieces are dancing on the board now. It's bordering on insane at this juncture. I didn't expect so many things to spiral out of control so fast. What do you think we should do?"**

**"Our goal was always to insinuate ourselves into the X-Men, to deal with Meridian. We didn't know so much else would happen around them."**

**"They are X-Men," Nemesis chuckled. "One mission begets so many other things, so many random changes and possibilities." She wearily pulled her mask off, her jaw barely healed though the rest of her body was still broken from the attack by Misery.**

**Alex kneeled by her and gently touched her faced. "Bruised? Will you be able to heal yourself completely over the next few days?"**

**"No, I can only apply small magic. I wanted to be able to at least speak," she smiled.**

**"Karma and Tran?"**

**"Comrades of Chamber and Nightcrawler," she said darkly as he leaned closer and kissed her. "This thing we do is a deadly matter, an insane matter if we're ever discovered, my love."**

**"We work to save more than just lives," he whispered. "We're trying to save the Earth itself."**

**"How many Shi'ar?"**

**"Ari extrapolates tens of millions. The UN has made a resolution to accept them, the data feed they've received from Lilandra promises an enlightened age, technological and medical that hasn't been seen on Earth ever before. She is literally going to be one of the most powerful governments on Earth and they're not even here yet," Alex grinned. "Ari and Hunter were working on first contact when I left. Luckily the X-Men have a relationship, albeit positive and negative, with Lilandra. The proximity to Australia and Sanctuary looks intentional, I think she's positioning her nation to have both allies and protectors if necessary."**

**"And Meridian?" Nemesis asked.**

**"As always, unknown. But we know she'll come for Warren again. Heal, my dear, we need our angel of death to protect him."**

**Topeka, Kansas:**

**Meridian looked out over her small farm. She'd had it for almost ten years. A simple four room cabin. Her cover story that she was a writer who came every so often to work. The nearby townspeople barely paying any attention to her, of course that meant she had to wear a dowdy brown wig to cover her cerulean locks. Sacrifices.**

**She looked over her journals and pictures of the Sanctuary X-Men, letting her fingers linger on a picture of Warren. He was handsome, she had to admit but he seemed almost fragile to her now. Their child lost in the timestream but his goal of killing Christ still intact. She let her psi powers drift across the timestream, and felt whispers of him, small twinkles out of the periphery of her psi sense. He was mature now and hiding from her. The front door opened and a male Sabine entered, dressed in a t shirt and jeans. He looked almost out of place with his regal bearing and carefully cut hair and goatee.**

**"Is she here yet?" Meridian asked.**

**"The satellite estimates watching the island being form Neramani will be completed and habitable in one week," Sabine reported calmly.**

**"Do we have the freighters in place? They will need supplies, those ships can't have brought everything for millions of people," Meridian said, looking at several grainy pictures of the Shi'ar starships in orbit. "I've got every one of my people in nine world governments calming this issue down throughout the world. Earth's first major contact and refuge for aliens is going to go gently, I won't allow for any pre-emptive strikes."**

**"There's rubbles from several of the Indian nations. It seems Neramani is being formed where several oil platforms used to be, shipping lanes are being re-routed and will be permanently disrupted. But there are already several terrorist factions preparing to attack."**

**"Have them killed. Every last one of them. Make it extremely bloody and clear to all the other terrorists that I'll kill anyone who dares to attack Lilandra's nation. We're going to need a distraction of some sort, something demonstrative to keep the world non-violent towards her."**

**"Magneto's energy band around the Earth isn't helping."**

**"I have my suspicions that isn't Magneto, it's such a huge leap in his powers. I imagine Viper is shitting bricks with him on her isle. Too bad Magneto chose to do this before Lilandra's arrival. Even the destruction of part of Manhattan isn't enough. We need a nuclear problem, something that the world can unify against."**

**"Even your resources are stretched to the limit protecting Neramani as it forms. It's one thing to protect multiple factions and a network of spies, it's another thing to cast a web of protection over an entire country forming. The bribes alone have gone into the billions to keep governments stalled and discussing this rather than attacking."**

**"I have close to three million agents all over this planet, Sabine, I can start a war anywhere, at any time. It's true test of my organization to prevent a world war. Open several of the Swiss accounts, we'll make it back tenfold from Lilandra when she starts producing."**

**"How much should I use?"**

**Meridian did a quick mental calculation and shrugged. "Forty billion. Pull it from Swiss, Saudi Arabian, American and African accounts. Whatever it takes, Sabine, protect Neramani."**

**"And the X-Men? They are moving towards the Fenris operation in Japan."**

**"Oh, goodness," she chuckled. "They are so prevalent now that they've gone international. And your clone in the Sanctuary town?"**

**"The psi link seems to be permanently cut off. That Sabine is no longer part of the network, they are not one of the whole," Sabine said sadly.**

**Meridian nodded. The fact that all of the agents on the planet she controlled were shape shifters and clones from Sabine made it easy to control them all. But to have one out of control wasn't even new, it had happened before. In many ways when Warren had attacked that Sabine in Madripoor, she'd released her mental control of it so that the X-Men could have one of her most valuable assets. In a hundred years, if the X-Men still existed, one of her creations, that Sabine would most likely be their leader.**

**Her Sabines had an average lifespan of five hundred years. Three million of them across the planet plus the fact that they had in some shape, form or fashion control of or supervision of a hundred people, meant that she controlled 300 million people. The problem with such a large number was that she couldn't move them all at once. It would undermine her very network to ever make it apparent that she was insinuated through her clones in almost every organization, government, company and family on the planet.**

**Meridian watched and felt Sabine relaying her instructions to thousands of Sabine clones across the globe, her unique psi attunement to them allowing her to see the psi tendrils snapping out of Sabine as he stood before her. The perfect slaves. Millions of immortals and they still wouldn't be enough to oppose her child. She needed more, always needed more resources to co-opt and utilize. **

**Forty million soon to be residents of Earth would be an excellent addition, she needed foot soldiers in the war. And if she was reading the psi impressions from the timestream correctly the war had already begun.**

**Somewhere.**

**Some when.**

**Fighting through time meant that at any moment the evidence of the fight itself would appear. She simply had to be hyper-vigilant to watching the entire world for her son, the one being who could usurp control of everything she'd built.**


	18. Romans Roaming

X-Men: Sanctuary 

**Issue # 18**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

**Paris, France:**

**Nemesis sat up in bed sensing something before she could actually see it. She saw a shadow creep closer and reached for her sword. But her arm was badly fractured and in a cast, she fell from the bed onto the floor.**

**"Who are you?!" she demanded and a crimson hand snapped out of the darkness and grabbed her by the throat.**

**"I can see now. I can see past all of the walls you've put up around who you really are. I can see now. I can see who you are," the vice whispered at her.**

**"Lies!" Nemesis hissed.**

**Akasa leaned out of the shadows and whispered into her ear, her true name. The name the X-Men originally knew her by as he snatched off her mask. "I can see now. I know what you've done to the others."**

**Nemesis froze in terror. It was too soon to be unveiled.**

**Akasa took her sword from her bedside. "I'll return it when I'm done."**

**With that the newly minted ninja seemed to melt back into the shadows.**

**Nemesis could see the mystical trails that he had left behind on her throat. She could see what Magma had subjected him to. She could feel the darkness of the Hand mages weaved through him now, imparting skills upon him that would've taken a lifetime to learn. Most terrifyingly enough, she knew that he now had the power to wield her sword. At first she wasn't sure what to do then she felt and could almost taste where one of the mystical residues from Akasa had begun at. **

**She took a deep breath and like blowing onto a burning ember, she pushed her own power into it. She wouldn't let it fade as quickly as it normally would've. It should've been gone in less than a minute but she held the mystical ember and fanned it slowly, following it to it's originator. She needed Akasa destroyed and who better than the Hand that had created him and even further down the line within that origination, the very creator of the psi impression ninja process. **

**She couldn't kill Akasa herself with her broken body but she had every confidence that Akasa was no match for the Mandarin.**

**Neramani:**

**Lilandra stood on a cliff side over looking the ocean below, a cul de sac of close to one twenty miles had been formed and this is where they would build their capital city. She felt chilly in just a dark coverall and simple white head feather covering. She would no longer be allowed many of her ceremonial clothing but that didn't matter to her. What did matter was the forty million people she had on the nation behind her, being beamed down. There was a slight glimmer a mile off the coast of Neramani that only avian eyes could see. A force field that would not allow any technology through, nor biological matter of a threat, nor if properly attuned, any natural disasters of a certain magnitude. It would only be a matter of time before the Earthlings demanded some sort of contact, some sort of diplomatic envoy. **

**"What do you think, sister?" Canaan said from behind her, a hologram projected from his starship which was already rocketing away from the solar system. He had literally stopped by in his massive cruisers to drop her and her exiles off, threaten the Earth and leave.**

**"Your announcement to them was purposefully condescending," she replied, turning to face him. He wore almost identical dark cover alls, his head feathers unusually shaved completely off and a simple armlet identifying him as regent. There was a severe austerity to her brother, something she didn't remember from him as a child. Wherever he and his entourage had journeyed in the far reaches of the galaxy had bred him to a singular sense of both purpose and control of self. Though it deeply concerned her, she could also see how just such a firm hand was needed to hold together the shattered Shi'ar Empire. **

**She couldn't even begrudge him exiling her, it was only his pique at making it Earth that seemed to insinuate an insult. Was he truly placing her somewhere that was forbidden to all her people to protect her from those who would see her killed? Or was this an insult for her bringing into the fold those who would come to ruin her people?**

**"To protect you and allow the Terrans to see purpose and profit in your presence. They were massing their mediocre weapons to eliminate you."**

**"What do you hope to accomplish from this? It seems to be more than a simple exile of me and these people."**

**"If they don't kill you, you will integrate into their world, sister. Within a hundred years a blending of people and technology. Within two hundred, you will be a significant portion of the population, by our calculations, one to two billion in numbers. Some of that merged species. In five hundred years, due to advanced life spans and greater endurance, the Shi'ar bloodline will be dominant and the colonization of their star system will include a minimum of one billion people on each of their nine major worlds and dozen moons."**

**Lilandra nodded darkly. "We are a colonization seed. We are a passive invasion."**

**"Precisely and I expect that the forty million will find the same interest in the humans that you have with Xavier."**

**"Which was?"**

**"To fuck."**

**Lilandra blanched and couldn't help but to blush as she watched thousands of people beyond his hologram working construction equipment, a hundred years old by Shi'ar standards but still hundreds of years more advanced than anything on Earth. They would have a functional infrastructure built within a week and a centralized city on the coast as well as small ones within a year. Her people were used to the life of constructing entire societies from nothing. She could imagine how the humans would perceive such advancements. Envy, scorn, greed. Her brother had amply supplied them with food and construction equipment but only a small cache of hand held weapons for a small army. And nothing that even resembled the technology or materials it would take to construct a starship. They had all of the practical science though and hundreds of smaller ships, ships that could go as far as the outer reaches of the star system but no further. He had crippled them from escaping but not from building. His plan was obviously not her death.**

**"We will survive, Canaan," she said confidently. For all the things he was, her brother had never lead an Empire, he had never fought protracted wars, he had never managed the challenges she had. In many ways this exile would be difficult in the fact that she would have to change her management style from macro, universal empire to micro, planetary nation. He on the other hand was used to managing only a small group of starships. He would find an empire a different beast. He was in the glow of less than a month of rule, he was making decisions that were wise for a commander but not a regent.**

**Nekar, the head of her cabinet walked over to her, his white feathers blowing gently in the wind. "We've constructed a base to begin, but there are incoming hails from the Terrans. They are demanding to speak with you and afetr Lord Canaan's pronouncement to them, they are in need of.......talking to."**

**"Agreed," Lilandra nodded. "If you'll excuse me, Canaan, I have to build your successors." She smiled and walked through his hologram.**

**Paris, France:**

**The floorboards shivered at first then they began to bend slowly upwards. A strong wind filled the hallway in the hall that the Festival of Mort had been held in. Eldritch energy crackled into existence and then there was a deep scream and Tran appeared in first his astral form and then his physical form in the middle of the empty hall.**

**He lay soaked in his own sweat, tears streaming down his eyes, his throat sore from the outside. It took him several moments to slow his breathing, his gasping. He was in the midst of a panic attack, something extremely traumatic had happened at the same time. The same time as what? He wasn't sure what to think of or what not to think of. His thoughts were jumbled but he felt a deep sense of shock within himself. There was like a ball of terror in his stomach.**

**SHAN!**

**_Tran_? She whispered back.**

**_Shan, it's you! I am not the frightened one, sister. It is you that is paralyzing me with terror. We are merged again. Calm down, damn you!_**

**_I was hurt. I was fighting. I was cut. A flash of a blade. It's all so jumbled. Then I felt like I was awash in water and darkness. As if something was reaching into the darkness for me._**

**"It must've been me," Tran vocalized. Their mental communication giving him a headache as he sat up. "Somehow we were both attacked, you physically and me in some astral dispersal way. I was forcibly separated from Raphael in this hallway. Some sort of mystical trap. But what brought us back together? Why so long? It's been hours at least. No one is here anymore."**

**"Days," Magma corrected standing over him. "Raphael----Akasa was able to draw you back together. He's a stronger telepath now."**

**"Hello," Raphael said next to Tran, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Take your time to re-orient yourself to being physical again. It was easy to draw you back together because we had been merged but I can't guarantee whatever happened with your sister. I didn't know that it was her presence that kept you stationary and possible to reform here."**

**"How?" Tran asked.**

**"I would suspect that you and Karma share the same mutant ability to become astral beings as well as physical. Hers manifested itself in the midst of battle. From what Akasa has relayed, I would assume that she was horribly wounded. Perhaps even fatally and she utilized this power for the first time. You were harmed in a similar way and you two merged again to reinforce each other."**

**"And the rather large, heavily armed man behind you?" Tran asked dryly.**

**Magma nodded at Rigel who was carrying a pulse rifle and several rows of wooden stakes in a flak jacket, over her shoulder. "He is along as help, we came back here to go rescue you and Karma from the vampire cult. I can follow the passages below Paris to the vampire source. Misery can't be allowed to get away, we have to stop her."**

**Tran stood weakly and stared at Magma and then nodded solemnly. "We owe taking a pound of flesh as well." He took a deep breath and his body swirled with astral energy then Karma stood in his place and Tran hovered next to her in his astral form. Magma grabbed Karma's arm, her teammates Kevlar lined costume protecting her from the heat.**

**"Are you strong enough to go with us?" Magma asked. "They are strong. I don't know if we can protect you. I'm not even sure this is the wisest course of action. Nemesis is hospitalized and the rest of the team is still in Spain as far as I know."**

**Karma nodded, rubbed her sore throat, grateful for the high collar. It was deceptively silk in appearance but it made of the same body armor as the X uniforms and just as protective. She could feel a healing cut on her neck, however she had been attacked someone had tried to slit her throat. She could barely remember engaging the vampires but she was grateful for the fact that they'd missed her jugular. Her attacker had come close but she was still alive.**

**"I was able to bring a small battalion of Hellfire cyborg guards, I think that with them as back up we can capture the vampire nest," Magma said confidently.**

**"Capture?" Karma asked skeptically. "I am not a bloodthirsty woman but I can't think of any reason not to kill them. Misery and her cult are dangerous. Dangerous is ways that could destroy and entire city."**

**"And some of her cult are unwillingly initiated mutants. Are you willing to tell the parents of these young teens and adult that murder was more expedient than being heroes and at least trying to make a place for them? We have a whole town in Sanctuary to safeguard them from the world and themselves. I am a bloodthirsty woman when it is necessary but I saw dozens of members around Misery. There were hundreds of young people here in God awful outfits who were susceptible to the cult, Karma. We can't allow that to go unchecked."**

**A crimson and black clad Hellfire guard with the featureless face plate they all wore came out of a corridor and nodded to Magma.**

**"Report, Reynolds?" Magma asked.**

**"We have fifty men having scoured all of the corridors within a range of one mile. Infra red detectors show that large mammals, most likely vampire have been present there in the past two days. We have found several sections that were blocked off several days most likely when they were running from you, ma'am."**

**"Have we been able to use the above ground GPS network and satellites to track their network?" Magma asked Rigel over her shoulder.**

**Rigel touched an ear piece then answered slowly in his rolling growling. "Yes, milady. We have it mapped as far as several possible entrances into the Seine as well as possible connections as far away as Venice. We have the largest signature of close to three hundred heat signatures---minimal, less than human, but larger than rodents---four miles form here."**

**"Signal to close them all off. I want their escape routes closed two miles outside of the network. This ends here in Paris. Get ready to signal the IRC to cover the streets and increase street patrols. We're going in."**

**Karma watched Magma's ease at controlling such a large force from the Hellfire Club and became more concerned then ever that a grave error had been made in allowing her to join them. Something had to be done. Karma was made very nervous by the concept of mutant vampires under Magma and the Hellfire Club's aegis. Karma discreetly activated her comm link's locator beacon, with an emergency request for aid. The X-men, the loyal ones were too outnumbered here. Even the way Akasa moved in ninja garb, whipping a face mask back on that covered all of his head but his eyes, slipping into the shadows, with a sword tied to his back. Something about him had changed as well. He moved so much more confidently, had so much more control of his powers. What had happened to him?**

**Nemesis, bandages soaked with blood, limped around a corner, trying to get back to the site where the Festival de Morte had been held. She knew that Akasa and Magma would be headed there. She couldn't allow them to uncover her murder of Tran and Shan, she couldn't allow Akasa to live with her identity in his head. It had been easy to sneak past her IRC guard detail at the hospital, moving from rooftop to rooftop but her power of flight was gone with her broken body. She could feel her ribs grinding against each other, breaking again, her arm and shoulder dislocating. She knew that she was probably killing herself to kill Akasa but she would deal with her own mortality after ending his.**

**She watched a family, a man and woman and their small girl pause in the mouth of the alleyway and she reached out with her mind, with her minute psi abilities to try and draw them to her. Only the little girl turned and sensed her. Maybe the child could help her? But how?**

**The girl wandered closer to the mouth of the alley and Nemesis snatched off her mask and drew her cloak around her bandages so as not to frighten her. Her parents were standing only a few feet away arguing over a map about which way to go, the evening sparkling with stars above.**

**"Bonjour?" the little girl grinned, all freckles and blonde pigtails.**

**"Bonjour, ma petite," Nemesis smiled in spite of her pain.**

**"Are you an American like us?" the little girl asked.**

**"Oui, ma petite. I am an American....of sorts," Nemesis replied, stung slightly that even to a child her identity was fraught with complications. Her origin was difficult to answer.**

**"Are you sick?" the little girl asked and touched Nemesis' hair.**

**"After a fashion. I was in a battle. A battle for the future."**

**"The future?"**

**"Yes, I know what it's going to be like and I'm trying to stave that off."**

**"What's it gonna be like in the year future?"**

Nemesis drew herself up to her full height and spoke clearly and firmly. "Well, ma petite, for your sake I hope it'll all be peaches and cream. But I'm afraid the end time is near. The cataclysmic apocalypse referred to in the scriptures of every holy book know to mankind. It will be an era fraught with boundless greed and corruption, where global monetary systems disintegrate, leaving brother to kill brother for a grain of over cooked rice. the nations of the civilized world will collapse under the oppressive weight of parasitic political conspiracies which remove all. Hope and optimism from their once faithful citizens. around the globe, generations of polluters will be punished for their sins. Unshielded by the ozone they have successfully depleted, left to bake in the searing naked rays of light.

"**Wholesale assassinations served to destabilize every remaining government, leaving the starving and wicked to fend for themselves. Bloodthirsty renegade cyborgs created by tax dodging corporations reek havoc. Pissed off androids tired of being slaves to a godless and gutless system, where the rich get richer and the poor get fucked over and out, unleash total world wide destruction by means of nuclear holocaust, annihilating the terrified masses, leaving in its torturous wake nothing but vicious, cannibalistic, mutating, radiating, and horribly disfigured hordes of satanic killers, bent on revenge. **

"**But against what? There are so few left alive. Starvation reins supreme, forcing unlucky survivors to eat anything and anyone in their path. Massive earthquakes crack the planets crust like a hollow egg shell, causing unending volcanic eruptions. creatures of the seven seas, unable to escape the certain death upon land, boil in their liquid prison. Disease then circles the earth, plagues and viruses with no known cause or cure laying waste to whatever draws breath, and humankind having proven itself to be nothing more than a race of ruthless scavengers, fall victim to merciless attacks at the hands of interplanetary alien tribes who seek to conquer our charred remains. this is an extinction level event. The final world front. And there is only one year left," Nemesis finished, her breath haggard and her eyes beginning to puddle with tears.**

**The little girl touched her hair again and then smiled brightly. "Wow, that's cool, I can't hardly wait!"**

**Nemesis sighed and limped away, turning a corner when a hand grabbed hers. "You sort me out, child?"**

**She looked up into the face of the suit clad Mandarin and was about to struggle when one of his rings flashed, the flesh to flesh contact intensifying the mental control and she fell unconscious in his arms.**

"**Such a precious prize," he whispered, snatching off her mask. "Ah, yes, I was correct in my estimations of your identity, my dear. What games do you play? I'll pry the secrets from you."**


	19. Neramani: Prologue

**X-Men: Sanctuary **

**Issue # 19 **

**By Kyle Phoenix **

**Roll Call: **

**Black Bishop ****Deathbird ****Frenzy ****Psyche ****Iceman ****M ****Magma ****Northstar ****Hardcore ****Peter Rasputin, Jr. ****Akasa ****Shadowcat ****Spike**

**Geneva, Switzerland, **

**World Congress: **

**Emma Frost rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly. Nearly a week of negotiations, treaties and establishing of rights for Neramani, the country (and by land mass possible continent---there was a whole room full of scientists debating that one a few buildings away) had wearied her beyond reason. While she had been outted as a mutant and that had repercussions for her businesses and social relationships, she hadn't anticipated how world governments would react to mutants so engrained in their midst. There were so many psi dampeners and active telepaths working to negate any form of telepathy that it was actually setting up a mental headache zone. Working in it for a week straight had made the pain a constant but tolerable calamity. The short rap at the door actually made her jump and then it swung open and the United States President, Nick Fury and Empress Lilandra strolled in. **

**"The world owes you a lot, Emma. You helped pave the way for this planet's first inter-species colonization and adoption of a new continent. Neramani," the President said with a gracious nod towards Lilandra who wore a simple black gown and long coat, the intricate silver highlights thread so deeply in the fabric that it was playing a trick on the eyes as it sparkled. Her head feathers high and regal. She looked every much the royalty which she had been deposed of so many times. **

**"It seems I have a legally temporary status on your planet," Lilandra nodded at Emma. **

**"The technology and medical advancements your people can teach us, even disenfranchised as you are, is enough to make the whole planet give you a chance," Emma smiled. **

**"Can I trust humanity, Emma? You are a human but also a mutant and now a leading figure on the world stage as a mutant leader, what would you advise I do now with my disenfranchised people?" Lilandra asked coyly. **

**"Study us and build things that are mutually beneficial. I understand that you hinted in one of your meetings about expansion to the Moon and beyond. Make it happen. Fast. Don't give them time to consider the fact that you're faster and smarter than them. I never have," Emma grinned. **

**"I hope that you'll see this as a step to be an ally of the ****United States****, Empress. We are willing to offer you a lot of resources, I already have over a hundred tankers and hundreds of aircraft scrambled to start shipping in supplies," the President grinned. **

**"As I said in the open council meetings, Mr. President, I still have my cabinet to appoint and my people to consider. We are not ready to accept anything that could be mistaken as allegiance. I must also consider the threat of my brother, ****Canaan****---my allies may become his enemies. And your world is ripe with ingenuity and super powered beings that with consideration my brother may consider equal to a new army," Lilandra said coolly. But it was clear that she was being diplomatic at best and slightly insulting, choosing not to be beholden to anyone. **

**Emma smiled slowly, the seats of power were changing indeed. **

**Sanctuary** **Australia**

**Jessica didn't like the way the comm net was ripe with so much information on threatened terrorist strikes against Neramani and then so suddenly they "uprisings" were quelled or wiped out all together. Could the world's government's move so fats to protect the newest nation? The mini-continent that was estimated at half the size of ****Australia**** before advanced force field and communication arrays had been activated that made the nation impossible to demark completely by satellites any longer. There was definitely something going on. But as much as she could see a pattern of the terror cells and even in some cases the organized government uproars from places like India and the Middle East flaring up and being subsided, there was still an outstanding contract being floated throughout the more nefarious regions of the world for a terror strike on what was being coined Unity Day-----in three months Lilandra was going to open up the shores of her new land to the world delegations for trade and travel. Supposedly Emma frost had already promised the Sanctuary X-Men as integrated security, but Lilandra's governmental cabinet was supposedly preparing themselves in a ways that Earthlings had probably never considered for security measures. **

**The displacement baffle force field was evidence enough of the nation's ability to both use advanced technology and blatant strength to oppose a planet full of interested spectators and possible attackers. **

**"How goes it?" Kitty asked as she phased through the door (a habit Jessica was finding more and more irritating). **

**"My sources confirm that there's a hit being set up on Neramani that seems to be avoiding all the righteous attempts to squash it out. Looks like the X-Men will have to get involved. I know your squad is tasked to Quantum but with ****Warren****'s crew split, you might be best taking a small team and following up on the supposed enclave in ****South Africa** **Johannesburg**** would be an excellent jump off point for an attack. I have a source there that says that there's a bio terrorist mutant there. I think he's going to take the contract and crash Unity Day." **

**"Not many folks here," Kitty said absently sitting down at a console and flipping through the rosters. "I wanted to give my squad a bit of a break; the ****New York**** mess was very trying on them. They needed some downtime. Paulie mentioned something about going to visit his family, they had a few loses from Quantum's explosion." **

**"It might be a good time to use Sabine," Jessica said. "And Marrow." **

**"Oh, the stable ones," Kitty snickered and they both smiled ruefully. **

**"Many a great X-Man started out as a villain or as unstable." **

**"Which says a lot about our team," Kitty laughed. "Ok, I'll take them, Sunspot, Spike and Peter. It's a good mix of experienced and newbie's. We should be able to do fine. Any word from Storm's team? Or ****Warren****'s? Or the Institute on conditions in ****New York****?" **

**"** **New York**** is the focus of CNN every minute of the day and there's a huge outrage but Neramani is taking center stage. A new age has come to Earth, people are already speculating on both complete annihilation by the Shi'ar and whether we'll have a colonized solar system in a hundred years. The Institute is still processing along with X Corp on sending in thousands of students and displaced mutants. Storm's team is off on a mission as is ****Warren****'s, though Nemesis is in a ****Paris**** hospital." **

**"And you? What do you make of this?" **

**"I've seen the security briefs and the confidential offerings of trade. Their technology knowledge alone on a planet wide scale will have us to the Moon before year's end with at least a few million colonists. Their ability to harness energy in new ways, teach us to process ore differently, more efficiently, will upset the global economy for the first few months but then we'll all have a world project to focus on. ****Canaan**** knew what he was doing. In less than a decade he can return to a fully annexed system ready to join the Big Galactic Boys. " **

**"We've finally changed the world. Mutants. We've finally changed the entire damn planet. I hope that we can survive the changes," Kitty said grimly, her thoughts fluttering back to the Xavier Control files. She hadn't heard back from Storm and was starting to wonder if maybe she had misplaced her trust in turning over her knowledge. Storms had been with the team a long time, met the professor as a child, and how deeply were his mental hooks into her? Was anyone even trustable when it came to an omega telepath like Xavier? **

**"Something on your mind?' Jessica asked, she'd observed Kitty as a capable warrior with a good heart but so much was happening to and around her, was she coping with it?  
"It's a lot to lead," Kitty said darkly then phased back through her chair and the far wall. **

**Outside hundreds of the town's residents had gathered near the center where the most improbable thing was happening, a summer shower. The heat usually over one hundred degrees was suddenly much, much cooler and children were dancing though the streets whooping and carrying on. Kitty watched from the sidelines for awhile then walked over to Cecelia who was drinking an iced tea and leaning on a porch. **

**"Bobby is trying out something new, he's trying to actually affect weather patterns by dispersing himself throughout the air or something like that," Cecelia explained. "He can't do it for long but it's a nice respite for at least a half an hour." **

**"Nice to see he's getting comfortable in his power expansion. How about you? Have you been working on your power expansion?" **

**Cecelia rolled her eyes. "The creation of psi plasma fields is limitless according to the research I've done. I should be zooming through the sky and stuff but I think all of my medical training made me too pragmatic, so I'm struggling to make shapes. Oh, and the Green Lantern comic books Paulie keeps giving me aren't helping." **

**"Green Lantern? Wow, Prof. X would frown on such training practices. Are we ready with staff and security for the incoming students tomorrow?" she chuckled. **

**"Yup. We'll be receiving close to one hundred thousand mutant refugees and students from the Institute and X Corp. We're officially on our way to an integrated society with humans, the San Madre population making it easier I think. This is going to stretch our resources very thin. It may look like we have a lot of X-Men here but we don't. Neramani takes the heat off of us, of course but we'll still be a target to someone eventually. I'm thinking even Quantum may take a shot at us." **

**Kitty shook her head angrily. "This is such a powder keg waiting to explode. The whole freaking planet is starting to feel like a stack of dynamite and mutants are the fuse. As much as I grew up idolizing Professor Xavier, I'm starting to see why he was so serious all the time. Mutants by their very nature are not just mutations, but also create mutations. Would we even have a new continent if not for the X-Men's involvement with the Shi'ar?" **

**Cecelia shrugged. "Evolution is natural. The Avengers and the Fantastic Four ain't exactly been neat on the Earth planet themselves. Maybe this is the fate of the planet? Maybe we are meant to mutate the world itself, to progress humanity farther in one or two generations than the past two hundred? I never did understand why mutants run from the fact of what they are, why you let Xavier set you up in these little enclaves." **

**"Didn't you try to go back to just be a normal doctor after being outted as a mutant and it didn't work?" Kitty challenged. **

**"Yeah, I did. But I think now that it didn't work because I was alone. Because maybe there weren't legal and social bodies set up to support me, to sue anyone who fucked with me, to even have lunch with. Maybe that's the next move, the next frontier-----mutant integration, not isolation." **

**"And when they try to kill us? When Genosha is cheered as the "first step"?" a cool voice from behind them challenged. The astral form of Emma Frost glided through their bodies, and pirouetted in mid air to face them, as always she was beautiful in a white pants suit but Kitty could see lines of weariness around the corners of her eyes. She hated the woman but even she could that she was being drawn in a thousand different directions, to the point of fatigue. **

**"How goes the world conference on Neramani?" Kitty asked. **

**"Like constipation going backwards. The world can't figure out if they just want to exploit Lilandra, align with her, or blow her to ashes." **

**"They don't have the power. Not even the Avengers could do it," Cecelia said. **

**Emma grinned darkly. "As a member of the Hellfire Club, I was privy to the secret information of many a nation. Trust me when I say that there are forces---mutants and scientific creations alike---that are more powerful than and more immoral than any team we know of. But I came here to make sure all was prepared for the students transferring here as well as the X Corp staff. In only a few weeks we've been able to construct several hundred homes as well as a dozen dorm facilities. Warren's resources, mine and Xavier's joined have literally built a small functional city over night." **

**"I've also been running physical specs on the San Madre people. While the Brood influence is gone they are still a powder keg themselves," Cecelia said calmly. "I've been meaning to call a meeting about it. It's pretty substantial." **

**"You mean the fact that they are nearly forty percent mutants or potential mutants?" Emma grinned. **

**"What!" Kitty gasped. **

**"You think Holy Mother was just choosing them because they were so isolated? I expect that they were part of a genetic breeding program and she stole them. I'm sure after the half dozen missions left over we can investigate their origins," Emma said calmly, looking out over the hundreds of people moving throughout the town center. **

**"Someone like Mr. Sinister? Meridian bought Marauders from him, he could be more tied into us than even we know," Cecelia hypothesized. **

**"I expect Mr. Sinister isn't behind this. The residents were abandoned. Someone started a genetic breeding program and then abandoned the specimens," Emma answered, her voice very even, very calm as if she were going to allow the two women to unravel the mystery themselves. Or not. But she would in no way assist. **

**"Emma, so their creator or orchestrator is dead?" Kitty said with a snap of her fingers as if she'd figured out a riddle. **

**_Or he decided to start, say...an Institute instead?_ Emma whispered to Kitty telepathically. **

**Kitty phased with s flick of a thought, and brought up her strongest psi shields, blocking herself from Emma, lest she see the connection to the Xavier Control files, she had immediately thought of. Emma's face turned in a slight flicker of suspicion then she grinned haughtily, taking caution for fear. But what did it mean that Emma thought Xavier was capable of such a long ranging cunning plot? Did it mean that Emma approved? Or that she was showing disapproval? Was Emma enough of an enemy (or an ally) still to be trusted with the most incendiary secret to come out of the X-men ever? **

**Paulie watched Kitty and Cecelia talk on a porch across the way and wondered if they were still going on about him and his gauntlets. They actually had good powers, useful powers, powers that meant something in a fight but simply being invulnerable wasn't all that impressive unless you were interested in being a human shield or battering ram all the time. The gauntlets though, they gave him an edge. He stood next to the park that had been built, having just played several games of basketball with a dozen teenagers. He'd been tempted more than once during the game to fly, to move faster, to release the kinetic energy he could feel pulsating through his body from the gauntlets. **

**But he hadn't. **

**That meant something, didn't it? He was still in control. He would never admit to any of the others but the gauntlets were a temptation constantly. Like sex----no, like an orgasm. Wearing them, feeling them pulsating throughout his every cell was like restrain from coming. He doubted anyone wanted to hear that graphic of a description. The jokes wouldn't cease if he'd said that aloud. And no matter whatever else he was ambivalent about, Paulie didn't want to be seen as a joke any longer. He needed this mini-vacation to ease his own head and check on his family. **

**Paulie spit onto the dirt and flew into the air then arched back towards the small house on the outskirts of town he'd chosen for himself. Plenty of space to blast his music in peace and also act as one of the perimeter guards. Jessica Drew, Alex and IT had drawn up a whole military outlay of who should be where based upon powers and skills. There was a whole bunch of files on his comm unit for him to read about his duties to the town, what to do in an emergency, who'd been released from prison that were potential enemies, the latest para-military rankings of the San Madre people, the various governments interested in them, what was going on with Neramani, what was going on with the other teams, etc., etc., etc.. **

**Genosha had spooked all mutants so badly that he couldn't blame them for being so security conscious. He wished that he could've stayed longer but he'd gotten several important emails from family and friends back in ****New York City****. He needed to go back and be with them, especially after the destruction of lower ****Manhattan**

**He picked up his satchel and flew out the window again, heading towards Gateway's mount. If Kitty was going to act like a tight ass over his new power, he didn't have much to say to her. Not even good-bye. **

**A moment later a flashing telepathic eye in a diamond blinked into the room and on the otherside of town, Monet picked up her Louis Vuitton carry all and started walking towards the Gateway mount. **

**Madripoor: **

**On the outskirts of Lowtown close to three hundred thousand mutants had made their way across the energy bridge/tunnel that only admitted mutants to their temporary way station. The residents of Madripoor had immediately given the arriving mutants a wide berth. Half the island was packed with refugees from the other half. The mutants forming a snarling perimeter that insinuated the threat, _We could just take the island_. It was only Magneto's daily pronouncements in holographic images two hundred feet tall that kept the mutants in line. There had even been rumors that of all the meetings he'd held culling together a mutant cabinet, that he'd slain the most dangerous. **

**As taxing on the island's residents and food supplies as the mutants were, Magneto had kept his word; no resident of Madripoor had been harmed. **

**Jack Quantum stood behind a thick set of curtains looking at the people below, Channel busy chattering in his head. Their thoughts becoming seamless as they gelled plans. **

**"Neramani has taken some of the heat off of us for the past few days but the reprieve won't last forever. And the energy bridge is very taxing; I must either disperse it or reinforce it. Are we ready to move yet?' Jack asked out loud. **

**_Collapse the bridge then. These are a small country but once we organize them others will follow. Only the strongest will survive the land anyway and only the strongest will be able to get to us. Do it. _Channel replied, he too was aware that while Quantum's powers didn't seem to have limits, the use of them did. They'd been maintaining the bridge for over a week across the entire planet and Channel had been a reinforcing mental brace but weariness was even nipping at the edges of his ephemeral consciousness. **

**Jack grinned and closed his eyes, Channels' influence giving him power to spare and control that he had never dreamed possible. With a thought the energy bridge was gone and with the next thought a portal almost three stories high appeared in the center of the throng of people, an image of Magneto appeared above the portal. **

**"To ****Eden****, for all who dare!" Magneto bellowed, burgundy cape flapping victorious around him, hands aglow with energy and the mutants flooded into it. Thousands at a time moved into the portal, it would only be a few hours before all the mutants willing to leave were gone. **

**Jack turned as Viper entered the suite he was in and he smiled at her, while putting on his helmet. She smiled slyly at the sight of his face, his helmet several feet away. She realized a moment later that the concentration of so much power had caused her presence to go unnoticed; she could've killed him right then and there. Whoever this mutant was, he was a rank amateur; she would've never allowed herself to be taken so unaware. No one would ever get close enough to her while distracted or else she would end up dead. She confidently spoke sharply to him, having seen the chink in his armor. "I didn't think you were Magneto. Who are you? Is there no limit to your powers?" **

**Magneto moved closer to her, his armor seeping from one side of the room to adorn his body, his helmet floating onto his head. "I am the inheritor to Magneto's faulty reign. I have just enough power to lay waste to your precious isle. Tell the world powers that I have taken my people to the ends of the Earth, where they cannot reach us but remind them, show them the pictures, tell the story---I can reach them all. There are many nations springing up, alien and mutant. Tell them that ****Eden**** has been reborn." **

**With that he turned and the walls and ceiling blew outward and he flew into the energy portal. **

**Viper dropped to a divan, clutching her hair, thankful that the mad mutants were gone. That she was safe from them. **

**Safety was her last thought as a hand snapped out of the darkness and she withered to dust, a gagging chortle from her throat. Selene chuckled, baring gleaming teeth as she absorbed a human who had been touched by many kinds of energy over a long lifetime, reforming from the shadows and looked out on the battered isle of Madripoor. It had been a long time since she'd so openly ruled a land. Selene opened her hands and eldritch energy lashed out from her fingertips, wards forming throughout the island then she took a deep breath and recalled the essence of Viper, like thinking of the taste of delicious food and slowly her features and garments became an exact replica of the slain woman. **

**Melbourne** **Australia**

**If possible the news, the worldwide media, was on overload. New York pummeled, Australia having vanished and reappeared, the appearance of Neramani, the pronouncements of Magneto and the energy bridge that had encircled the Earth for a week and then vanished along with its creator and thousands of mutants. The world was under siege, changing, literally mutating on a primal level. News stations on every end of the planet were overwhelmed with what to report on first there was too much to cover. The residents of planet Earth moved in stunned outrage at the possibility that anything could happen, anywhere could be next. **

**John Riedl had known he was a mutant for close to fifteen years. He'd been careful to keep his powers secret. There was a time when mutants were akin to hidden Nazis, then when they were celebrities and now when they were an accepted population, like homosexuals----integrated but not truly wanted, easy to ostracize. John had opted to not be a prisoner of his genetic structure and had instead kept his secret. He had known for a long time that as mutants became more and more popular and "out", he would one day be outted himself. But he wanted that precious time of illusions, of self delusion to last, to coddle with at night. **

**Then it had become common knowledge that the X-Men had an invisible city, some said as big as ****Sydney****, in the ****Southwest** **Territories****. They were responsible for the time that ****Australia**** had been swept with what appeared to be fireworks from coast to coast and the people of ****Australia**** later learned that the entire continent had vanished for several minutes. That had been a hard thing to swallow. There were still factions who claimed that it was the rest of the world that had lost its mind, whose senses had vanished, ****Australia**** had been spared, perhaps even saved by the X-Men. **

**Or damned by it. **

**John knew that the X-Men being on the same continent with him meant that the time was coming when he would be discovered. He hadn't expected it to be at ****3 AM**** in the morning with a costumed freak crashing through his window. A session on the Internet in the Naughty Down Under chat room was interrupted and John's life on the run had begun. He'd escaped out of his house, prepared for a long time to run, a duffel bag packed behind a group of bushes, a loaded Glock in the flower pot. He'd turned, firing at the man confidently moving towards him, until he sensed a dozen more that had the block surrounded. **

**That had been almost nine hours ago and he was amazed he was still alive, they'd been relentless. He'd finally found his way to a radio station and been working feverishly on broadcasting a signal towards the ****Southwest** **Territories**** when the fist had come through the wall. **

**"John, make this easy and stop running," Blackguard said smoothly, looking both sleek and menacing in a charcoal gray bodysuit with a shiny green chest carapace. "We simply want your ability to be used for a few small missions and then you can go on about your way. A rich man. A very rich man." **

**"Not interested," John said weakly, raising the Glock, his right arm had been wrenched in a tumbling fight with several of Blackguards men. The pain had gone beyond blinding and the arm was now just numb and nearly useless. **

**"You know bullets don't work on me," Blackguard grinned, a grizzled face, with a short goatee and bald head, he looked to be well into his sixties but his eyes twinkled with pleasure at the concept of fighting. Obviously a fellow mutant, whom John would've thought he could've preyed upon, emotionally played upon. But the look in the man's eyes said that he'd lived a life where emotion, where begging victims were something he'' learned to block out long ago. **

**"And you should know by now that I don't fire simply bullets," John fired the gun several times and the bullets seemed to spiral out then fly back at John. John raised his hand and each approaching bullet glowed as his hand was glowing and then stopped in midair turned and flew back at his enemy. **

**"Not this time!" Blackguard laughed and dove into the swirling maelstrom of bullets that were starting to glimmer and hum with energy. He slammed into John and the two went sailing across the room, John actually heard one of his ribs crack from the impact, he knew that landing would incapacitate him. The bullets were on the ground, his concentration having been broken, and the connection no longer active. He'd need to focus again, once he could breathe properly to use them. Then he saw Blackguard continue flying across the room, he'd passed through John's body and a slim young lady was clutching his shirt from behind, their bodies moving through all of the objects around them. **

**"X-Men, I presume?" John gasped. **

**"Shadowcat at your service. Next time broadcast a wee bit louder, our mainframe was almost overloaded by that radio boosted burst," she grinned. **

**"Sorry. I was amplifying the signal," John said sheepishly as they backpedaled through a wall, Blackguard hurling consoles and eventually crashing through a wall moving towards them. "I'm good at some things, things I can see but not at redirecting energy I can't see." **

**"He's mine, Shadowcat. Stay out of this, X-Man!" Blackguard shouted. **

**"Kiss my ass!" Shadowcat snickered. **

**"Later," Blackguard smirked until an energy blast slammed into him, sending him out of the radio station entirely. **

**"Rude, isn't he?" Sabine said, hand still sizzling with energy. **

**Shadowcat looked at the metamorph warily, he was wearing a yellow and blue X-Men training uniform, but she wasn't sure that she trusted him. A mutant clone gone rogue from a dangerous enemy, even that was a hard pill for her to swallow. **

**"Thanks, Sabine," Shadowcat nodded and turned to John. **

**"I can't let you take me in though, young lady," John said to Shadowcat and touched her shoulder, a violent shock raced through her body and they became tangible again, leaving her dazed on the floor. **

**Sabine turned to help his new teammate and a moment later the walls exploded in artillery fire from outside. Sabine dove to the floor on top of her, shielding her from the gunfire. **

**"Those would be my boys," Blackguard chuckled, running through the hail of bullets, which bounced harmlessly off of him, as he ran after John who'd slipped down a staircase. Halfway down the stairs, Marrow crashed up from under and snatched Blackguard down, a vicious grin on her face. **

**"You the new X animal?" Blackguard grinned then snapped a hard kick into her face. Marrow fell backwards then casually folded her back over, into a back flip, sharp bone daggers shooting from her stomach at him. Blackguard tried to swat several away but one caught him above the eye, ripping open the flesh. **

**"So you ain't invulnerable?" Marrow chuckled, rushing forward and stabbing him. "I guess this X animal is gonna get fed tonight." **

**"Not to the organic," Blackguard grunted angrily. "Seems you're the natural antithesis to my mutant power. Can't allow you to live, you understand?" **

**"Better have tried and failed," Marrow said as she ducked under a clumsy punch of his and came up with her own blow to his face. Blackguard caught her arm and slammed her through the wall, still following John who was rushing down a hallway, crouched low, the ground floor now under fire too. Blackguard continued to use Marrow's body as a battering ram through office furniture, walls, any obstruction, keeping parallel pace with John who was being herded by the gunfire towards one section of the building. **

**"We could use some help here, boys," Shadowcat said into her comm link as she phased herself and Sabine through the floor. **

**"Acknowledged," Sunspot said and sailed out of the Avery, hands erupting with black solar energy, striking down half a dozen of the commandos who were firing on the building. They turned and began firing upwards and the Avery swooped in front of Sunspot, repelling the gunfire with its armored underside. **

**"Thank you, Peter," Sunspot said over his comm link. "I've spotted our hunted mutant; I'm going to maintain coverage of him. Try and get him to safety." **

**"Acknowledged. We're going to take care of Blackguard and his group of bounty hunters," Shadowcat said as she and Sabine phased out of the building. They found a barely conscious Marrow on the ground, clearly hurt from Blackguard using her body. "Peter, get down here and pick up Marrow then track us and follow!" **

**"Has mutant hunting come to this?" Sabine asked calmly as they hurried along the darkened streets, police sirens faintly coming closer. **

**"There seem to be interested parties in Mr. Riedl and more importantly, they're willing to pay big bucks. There have been rumors of Blackguard snatching up mutants that fit a spec bill for the highest bidder. While I'd like to say the X-Men had the time and resources to be protecting Mr. Riedl in his time of need, it was Blackguard's appearance and mention in Riedl's SOS that really brought us here." **

**"And do we know what makes Mr. Riedl so special?" **

**"Well, his manipulation of electromagnetic fields would seem to be valuable. That's what it would take to shock me out of phase. There are a lot of creative and destructive uses for such a power if properly channeled." **

**"Kitty, I have a scan of close to twenty commandos running down, Mr. Riedl, how do you want me to proceed?" Spike comm linked from the Avery. **

**"Riedl is rightfully scared of them and us. Sabine, you are the best suited to hold off Blackguard, I'll deal with the commandos with Peter and Spike. Let's try and contain this before it gets out of control." **

**Thunderous booming cracks from the sky above heralded the arrival of an airship, four times larger than the Avery that was a menacing gun metal black. It silently turned and opened fire on the Avery and the city below. **

**"Ok, it's officially out of control," Shadowcat murmured. **

**Sanctuary: **

**Jessica stood on the third floor terrace of her cottage watching the sunrise, thinking about the five hundred or so things she had to deal with today. Mainly watching over security, internal and external, as the mutant refugees arrived. This whole place was starting to remind her of Wundagore where she'd started out her life, gotten her own powers, which had lead the spiral path of fate to bringing her to this mutant world. The outcast stigma of mutants had made them seem kin to her and here she was now their chief administrator. **

**Her fingers tensed on her mug full of iced coffee (only the insane could drink hot coffee in this heat) and she noticed that the dot in the sunrise was a swirl of clouds approaching. Fast. **

**"IT!" she snapped aloud as her body tensed. Her heightened senses, particularly her sight had picked up something small coming in fast under their radar. How the object was avoiding there electronic counter-measures was the real question. **

**"Here," IT answered calmly, his glowing green head appearing instantly next to her. **

**"We have incoming. Identify through satellite link ups. Alert the X Guard. General alarm, restrict everyone to their homes, maintain stations for the night watch," she rattled off having put together a top notch team out of the San Madre people in a little over a month. They had been more than eager to learn new skills and adapt to a new life and in particular secure a land that was free offered, and in large chunks, their own. **

**"Done," IT said without even blinking. "The object is generating a slightly out of phase electrical current that prevents our sensors from locking on to it. I would surmise that it can only be seen visually." **

**Jessica made a mental note to incorporate into his program blinking. She was about to retreat inside to slip into her X uniform when her eyes focused more and she gave a sigh of relief. **

**"IT stand down. Identity confirmed." **

**"Done." **

**Jessica waited less than five minutes for the mutant to cross close to fifty miles from the horizon, impressed at how she'd timed coming in with the sun to her back. It would have obscured all visual identification and there were inconsistent reports that several of the Roma/Siege Perilous affected X-men still had a natural cloaking to most electronic devices. **

**"Hello, my friend," Storm said regally, her cloak opening from a tight cocoon to a billowing sail as she landed calmly on the terrace. **

**"Testing our security? Trying to get shot down? You were almost our first official target practice," Jessica grinned as the two friends hugged. **

**"Jessica, I am many things. But trust that had I wanted to enter this township undetected, I could have. I will admit though that the security schematics the Institute has received are impressive. Even I would've been challenged," Storm smiled but there was an edge to her words. An emphatic promise of ability. **

**"And her?" Jessica said, dropping her mug, whirling around, snapping out a venom blast that caught Sage, who was moving stealthily through the bedroom towards them, in the hip. Sage dropped to one knee, a cold smile on her face. **

**"Now, I'm impressed," Sage said, the bio-electrical bolt having been on low so that it took her only a moment to recover. "According to my files you were no longer able to use your powers as the former Spiderwoman." **

**Jessica caught her mug before it hit the floor. "I compiled those files that I forwarded on to the Institute. I lied. About that and a few other things in case any of you or the mainframe was ever compromised." **

**Storm laughed heartily. "A warrior born, Jessica! Sage isn't easily impressed." **

**"I take it this isn't a social visit or to see the class arrive?" Jessica sipped her coffee. **

**"No. We have word of our compatriots. The Shi'ar contacted us from Neramani. Nightcrawler and Chamber are found," Storm beamed. **

**"But there are...complications," Sage added mysteriously. "You'll need this," Sage tossed Jessica her black leather X uniform. "We have to take a little jaunt courtesy of something non-trackable." **

**"That would mean Gateway," Jessica filled in. "To where?" **

**"To the Moon," Storm answered. **

**Asgaard: **

**She hadn't expected there time together to be so long or for her feelings to become so intense. She sat on the river's edge watching him bathe in the moonlight. With their psi rapport, she could feel him enjoying her appreciation of him, sight becoming almost as sensuous and sexual as touch. She'd discovered that Carlos was a bit vain; enjoying the attention she paid to him. She could see how a group relationship and psionic rapport was less disconcerting to him because of this. In fact, she thought that he was a little dependent on it to constantly be in place with someone. She'd seen in their shared dreams, his desire of ****Warren****. His desire for all of them. Even Deathbird. **

**He turned and walked up the beach towards her. She handed him an animal skin blanket and he sat down by the fire, smiling. **

**"It's been a long time...well as relative as possible for me...since I've spent so much time in the wild. No smog or noise or super villains with their nefarious plots," Carlos smiled and opened the blanket and Dani smiled and crawled in. **

**"We can try the spell again in a couple of days to get back home. I know you're worried about everything going on back there in spite of your enjoyment of here," Dani said, looking into the flames and feeling a sense of isolation from the others. **

**"And then confront perhaps a world torn asunder. We've been here close to three months traveling closer to these ancient mystical power points. I can feel them ebbing and flowing now. I can use that magic. But I wonder what will happen when we get back to Earth. We'll have a doubly powerful Marat to contend with. And over time the demon that was within me, will become more and more powerful within him. I've had hundreds of years to accustom myself to containing such evil, to limiting and even using some of the demon's power for my own. But Marat, he's a much easier vessel. I'm sure the X-Men could subdue him, and Ng would know how to imprison him with my militia but they won't be able to contain him as long as they might think. His magical nature alone will act like a focusing lens for the Beast," Carlos looked off distantly, his thoughts taking on a dark cast as he seemed to look into the night at their future. **

**Dani touched his face to bring his attention back to her. "Then we should make the most of now." She brought his face down and kissed him deeply then gasped. **

**Carlos touched her swollen belly. "Quite the kicker, eh?" **

**Dani blushed and then returned to their kiss, the night's chill making her pull closer to him in the blanket. **

X-Men: Sanctuary 

**Issue # 19 **

**By Kyle Phoenix **

**Roll Call: **

**Black Bishop ****Deathbird ****Frenzy ****Psyche ****Iceman ****M ****Magma ****Northstar ****Hardcore ****Peter Rasputin, Jr. ****Akasa ****Shadowcat ****Spike**

**Geneva, Switzerland, **

**World Congress: **

**Emma Frost rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly. Nearly a week of negotiations, treaties and establishing of rights for Neramani, the country (and by land mass possible continent---there was a whole room full of scientists debating that one a few buildings away) had wearied her beyond reason. While she had been outted as a mutant and that had repercussions for her businesses and social relationships, she hadn't anticipated how world governments would react to mutants so engrained in their midst. There were so many psi dampeners and active telepaths working to negate any form of telepathy that it was actually setting up a mental headache zone. Working in it for a week straight had made the pain a constant but tolerable calamity. The short rap at the door actually made her jump and then it swung open and the United States President, Nick Fury and Empress Lilandra strolled in. **

**"The world owes you a lot, Emma. You helped pave the way for this planet's first inter-species colonization and adoption of a new continent. Neramani," the President said with a gracious nod towards Lilandra who wore a simple black gown and long coat, the intricate silver highlights thread so deeply in the fabric that it was playing a trick on the eyes as it sparkled. Her head feathers high and regal. She looked every much the royalty which she had been deposed of so many times. **

**"It seems I have a legally temporary status on your planet," Lilandra nodded at Emma. **

**"The technology and medical advancements your people can teach us, even disenfranchised as you are, is enough to make the whole planet give you a chance," Emma smiled. **

**"Can I trust humanity, Emma? You are a human but also a mutant and now a leading figure on the world stage as a mutant leader, what would you advise I do now with my disenfranchised people?" Lilandra asked coyly. **

**"Study us and build things that are mutually beneficial. I understand that you hinted in one of your meetings about expansion to the Moon and beyond. Make it happen. Fast. Don't give them time to consider the fact that you're faster and smarter than them. I never have," Emma grinned. **

**"I hope that you'll see this as a step to be an ally of the ****United States****, Empress. We are willing to offer you a lot of resources, I already have over a hundred tankers and hundreds of aircraft scrambled to start shipping in supplies," the President grinned. **

**"As I said in the open council meetings, Mr. President, I still have my cabinet to appoint and my people to consider. We are not ready to accept anything that could be mistaken as allegiance. I must also consider the threat of my brother, ****Canaan****---my allies may become his enemies. And your world is ripe with ingenuity and super powered beings that with consideration my brother may consider equal to a new army," Lilandra said coolly. But it was clear that she was being diplomatic at best and slightly insulting, choosing not to be beholden to anyone. **

**Emma smiled slowly, the seats of power were changing indeed. **

**Sanctuary** **Australia**

**Jessica didn't like the way the comm net was ripe with so much information on threatened terrorist strikes against Neramani and then so suddenly they "uprisings" were quelled or wiped out all together. Could the world's government's move so fats to protect the newest nation? The mini-continent that was estimated at half the size of ****Australia**** before advanced force field and communication arrays had been activated that made the nation impossible to demark completely by satellites any longer. There was definitely something going on. But as much as she could see a pattern of the terror cells and even in some cases the organized government uproars from places like India and the Middle East flaring up and being subsided, there was still an outstanding contract being floated throughout the more nefarious regions of the world for a terror strike on what was being coined Unity Day-----in three months Lilandra was going to open up the shores of her new land to the world delegations for trade and travel. Supposedly Emma frost had already promised the Sanctuary X-Men as integrated security, but Lilandra's governmental cabinet was supposedly preparing themselves in a ways that Earthlings had probably never considered for security measures. **

**The displacement baffle force field was evidence enough of the nation's ability to both use advanced technology and blatant strength to oppose a planet full of interested spectators and possible attackers. **

**"How goes it?" Kitty asked as she phased through the door (a habit Jessica was finding more and more irritating). **

**"My sources confirm that there's a hit being set up on Neramani that seems to be avoiding all the righteous attempts to squash it out. Looks like the X-Men will have to get involved. I know your squad is tasked to Quantum but with ****Warren****'s crew split, you might be best taking a small team and following up on the supposed enclave in ****South Africa** **Johannesburg**** would be an excellent jump off point for an attack. I have a source there that says that there's a bio terrorist mutant there. I think he's going to take the contract and crash Unity Day." **

**"Not many folks here," Kitty said absently sitting down at a console and flipping through the rosters. "I wanted to give my squad a bit of a break; the ****New York**** mess was very trying on them. They needed some downtime. Paulie mentioned something about going to visit his family, they had a few loses from Quantum's explosion." **

**"It might be a good time to use Sabine," Jessica said. "And Marrow." **

**"Oh, the stable ones," Kitty snickered and they both smiled ruefully. **

**"Many a great X-Man started out as a villain or as unstable." **

**"Which says a lot about our team," Kitty laughed. "Ok, I'll take them, Sunspot, Spike and Peter. It's a good mix of experienced and newbie's. We should be able to do fine. Any word from Storm's team? Or ****Warren****'s? Or the Institute on conditions in ****New York****?" **

**"** **New York**** is the focus of CNN every minute of the day and there's a huge outrage but Neramani is taking center stage. A new age has come to Earth, people are already speculating on both complete annihilation by the Shi'ar and whether we'll have a colonized solar system in a hundred years. The Institute is still processing along with X Corp on sending in thousands of students and displaced mutants. Storm's team is off on a mission as is ****Warren****'s, though Nemesis is in a ****Paris**** hospital." **

**"And you? What do you make of this?" **

**"I've seen the security briefs and the confidential offerings of trade. Their technology knowledge alone on a planet wide scale will have us to the Moon before year's end with at least a few million colonists. Their ability to harness energy in new ways, teach us to process ore differently, more efficiently, will upset the global economy for the first few months but then we'll all have a world project to focus on. ****Canaan**** knew what he was doing. In less than a decade he can return to a fully annexed system ready to join the Big Galactic Boys. " **

**"We've finally changed the world. Mutants. We've finally changed the entire damn planet. I hope that we can survive the changes," Kitty said grimly, her thoughts fluttering back to the Xavier Control files. She hadn't heard back from Storm and was starting to wonder if maybe she had misplaced her trust in turning over her knowledge. Storms had been with the team a long time, met the professor as a child, and how deeply were his mental hooks into her? Was anyone even trustable when it came to an omega telepath like Xavier? **

**"Something on your mind?' Jessica asked, she'd observed Kitty as a capable warrior with a good heart but so much was happening to and around her, was she coping with it?  
"It's a lot to lead," Kitty said darkly then phased back through her chair and the far wall. **

**Outside hundreds of the town's residents had gathered near the center where the most improbable thing was happening, a summer shower. The heat usually over one hundred degrees was suddenly much, much cooler and children were dancing though the streets whooping and carrying on. Kitty watched from the sidelines for awhile then walked over to Cecelia who was drinking an iced tea and leaning on a porch. **

**"Bobby is trying out something new, he's trying to actually affect weather patterns by dispersing himself throughout the air or something like that," Cecelia explained. "He can't do it for long but it's a nice respite for at least a half an hour." **

**"Nice to see he's getting comfortable in his power expansion. How about you? Have you been working on your power expansion?" **

**Cecelia rolled her eyes. "The creation of psi plasma fields is limitless according to the research I've done. I should be zooming through the sky and stuff but I think all of my medical training made me too pragmatic, so I'm struggling to make shapes. Oh, and the Green Lantern comic books Paulie keeps giving me aren't helping." **

**"Green Lantern? Wow, Prof. X would frown on such training practices. Are we ready with staff and security for the incoming students tomorrow?" she chuckled. **

**"Yup. We'll be receiving close to one hundred thousand mutant refugees and students from the Institute and X Corp. We're officially on our way to an integrated society with humans, the San Madre population making it easier I think. This is going to stretch our resources very thin. It may look like we have a lot of X-Men here but we don't. Neramani takes the heat off of us, of course but we'll still be a target to someone eventually. I'm thinking even Quantum may take a shot at us." **

**Kitty shook her head angrily. "This is such a powder keg waiting to explode. The whole freaking planet is starting to feel like a stack of dynamite and mutants are the fuse. As much as I grew up idolizing Professor Xavier, I'm starting to see why he was so serious all the time. Mutants by their very nature are not just mutations, but also create mutations. Would we even have a new continent if not for the X-Men's involvement with the Shi'ar?" **

**Cecelia shrugged. "Evolution is natural. The Avengers and the Fantastic Four ain't exactly been neat on the Earth planet themselves. Maybe this is the fate of the planet? Maybe we are meant to mutate the world itself, to progress humanity farther in one or two generations than the past two hundred? I never did understand why mutants run from the fact of what they are, why you let Xavier set you up in these little enclaves." **

**"Didn't you try to go back to just be a normal doctor after being outted as a mutant and it didn't work?" Kitty challenged. **

**"Yeah, I did. But I think now that it didn't work because I was alone. Because maybe there weren't legal and social bodies set up to support me, to sue anyone who fucked with me, to even have lunch with. Maybe that's the next move, the next frontier-----mutant integration, not isolation." **

**"And when they try to kill us? When Genosha is cheered as the "first step"?" a cool voice from behind them challenged. The astral form of Emma Frost glided through their bodies, and pirouetted in mid air to face them, as always she was beautiful in a white pants suit but Kitty could see lines of weariness around the corners of her eyes. She hated the woman but even she could that she was being drawn in a thousand different directions, to the point of fatigue. **

**"How goes the world conference on Neramani?" Kitty asked. **

**"Like constipation going backwards. The world can't figure out if they just want to exploit Lilandra, align with her, or blow her to ashes." **

**"They don't have the power. Not even the Avengers could do it," Cecelia said. **

**Emma grinned darkly. "As a member of the Hellfire Club, I was privy to the secret information of many a nation. Trust me when I say that there are forces---mutants and scientific creations alike---that are more powerful than and more immoral than any team we know of. But I came here to make sure all was prepared for the students transferring here as well as the X Corp staff. In only a few weeks we've been able to construct several hundred homes as well as a dozen dorm facilities. Warren's resources, mine and Xavier's joined have literally built a small functional city over night." **

**"I've also been running physical specs on the San Madre people. While the Brood influence is gone they are still a powder keg themselves," Cecelia said calmly. "I've been meaning to call a meeting about it. It's pretty substantial." **

**"You mean the fact that they are nearly forty percent mutants or potential mutants?" Emma grinned. **

**"What!" Kitty gasped. **

**"You think Holy Mother was just choosing them because they were so isolated? I expect that they were part of a genetic breeding program and she stole them. I'm sure after the half dozen missions left over we can investigate their origins," Emma said calmly, looking out over the hundreds of people moving throughout the town center. **

**"Someone like Mr. Sinister? Meridian bought Marauders from him, he could be more tied into us than even we know," Cecelia hypothesized. **

**"I expect Mr. Sinister isn't behind this. The residents were abandoned. Someone started a genetic breeding program and then abandoned the specimens," Emma answered, her voice very even, very calm as if she were going to allow the two women to unravel the mystery themselves. Or not. But she would in no way assist. **

**"Emma, so their creator or orchestrator is dead?" Kitty said with a snap of her fingers as if she'd figured out a riddle. **

**_Or he decided to start, say...an Institute instead?_ Emma whispered to Kitty telepathically. **

**Kitty phased with s flick of a thought, and brought up her strongest psi shields, blocking herself from Emma, lest she see the connection to the Xavier Control files, she had immediately thought of. Emma's face turned in a slight flicker of suspicion then she grinned haughtily, taking caution for fear. But what did it mean that Emma thought Xavier was capable of such a long ranging cunning plot? Did it mean that Emma approved? Or that she was showing disapproval? Was Emma enough of an enemy (or an ally) still to be trusted with the most incendiary secret to come out of the X-men ever? **

**Paulie watched Kitty and Cecelia talk on a porch across the way and wondered if they were still going on about him and his gauntlets. They actually had good powers, useful powers, powers that meant something in a fight but simply being invulnerable wasn't all that impressive unless you were interested in being a human shield or battering ram all the time. The gauntlets though, they gave him an edge. He stood next to the park that had been built, having just played several games of basketball with a dozen teenagers. He'd been tempted more than once during the game to fly, to move faster, to release the kinetic energy he could feel pulsating through his body from the gauntlets. **

**But he hadn't. **

**That meant something, didn't it? He was still in control. He would never admit to any of the others but the gauntlets were a temptation constantly. Like sex----no, like an orgasm. Wearing them, feeling them pulsating throughout his every cell was like restrain from coming. He doubted anyone wanted to hear that graphic of a description. The jokes wouldn't cease if he'd said that aloud. And no matter whatever else he was ambivalent about, Paulie didn't want to be seen as a joke any longer. He needed this mini-vacation to ease his own head and check on his family. **

**Paulie spit onto the dirt and flew into the air then arched back towards the small house on the outskirts of town he'd chosen for himself. Plenty of space to blast his music in peace and also act as one of the perimeter guards. Jessica Drew, Alex and IT had drawn up a whole military outlay of who should be where based upon powers and skills. There was a whole bunch of files on his comm unit for him to read about his duties to the town, what to do in an emergency, who'd been released from prison that were potential enemies, the latest para-military rankings of the San Madre people, the various governments interested in them, what was going on with Neramani, what was going on with the other teams, etc., etc., etc.. **

**Genosha had spooked all mutants so badly that he couldn't blame them for being so security conscious. He wished that he could've stayed longer but he'd gotten several important emails from family and friends back in ****New York City****. He needed to go back and be with them, especially after the destruction of lower ****Manhattan**

**He picked up his satchel and flew out the window again, heading towards Gateway's mount. If Kitty was going to act like a tight ass over his new power, he didn't have much to say to her. Not even good-bye. **

**A moment later a flashing telepathic eye in a diamond blinked into the room and on the otherside of town, Monet picked up her Louis Vuitton carry all and started walking towards the Gateway mount. **

**Madripoor: **

**On the outskirts of Lowtown close to three hundred thousand mutants had made their way across the energy bridge/tunnel that only admitted mutants to their temporary way station. The residents of Madripoor had immediately given the arriving mutants a wide berth. Half the island was packed with refugees from the other half. The mutants forming a snarling perimeter that insinuated the threat, _We could just take the island_. It was only Magneto's daily pronouncements in holographic images two hundred feet tall that kept the mutants in line. There had even been rumors that of all the meetings he'd held culling together a mutant cabinet, that he'd slain the most dangerous. **

**As taxing on the island's residents and food supplies as the mutants were, Magneto had kept his word; no resident of Madripoor had been harmed. **

**Jack Quantum stood behind a thick set of curtains looking at the people below, Channel busy chattering in his head. Their thoughts becoming seamless as they gelled plans. **

**"Neramani has taken some of the heat off of us for the past few days but the reprieve won't last forever. And the energy bridge is very taxing; I must either disperse it or reinforce it. Are we ready to move yet?' Jack asked out loud. **

**_Collapse the bridge then. These are a small country but once we organize them others will follow. Only the strongest will survive the land anyway and only the strongest will be able to get to us. Do it. _Channel replied, he too was aware that while Quantum's powers didn't seem to have limits, the use of them did. They'd been maintaining the bridge for over a week across the entire planet and Channel had been a reinforcing mental brace but weariness was even nipping at the edges of his ephemeral consciousness. **

**Jack grinned and closed his eyes, Channels' influence giving him power to spare and control that he had never dreamed possible. With a thought the energy bridge was gone and with the next thought a portal almost three stories high appeared in the center of the throng of people, an image of Magneto appeared above the portal. **

**"To ****Eden****, for all who dare!" Magneto bellowed, burgundy cape flapping victorious around him, hands aglow with energy and the mutants flooded into it. Thousands at a time moved into the portal, it would only be a few hours before all the mutants willing to leave were gone. **

**Jack turned as Viper entered the suite he was in and he smiled at her, while putting on his helmet. She smiled slyly at the sight of his face, his helmet several feet away. She realized a moment later that the concentration of so much power had caused her presence to go unnoticed; she could've killed him right then and there. Whoever this mutant was, he was a rank amateur; she would've never allowed herself to be taken so unaware. No one would ever get close enough to her while distracted or else she would end up dead. She confidently spoke sharply to him, having seen the chink in his armor. "I didn't think you were Magneto. Who are you? Is there no limit to your powers?" **

**Magneto moved closer to her, his armor seeping from one side of the room to adorn his body, his helmet floating onto his head. "I am the inheritor to Magneto's faulty reign. I have just enough power to lay waste to your precious isle. Tell the world powers that I have taken my people to the ends of the Earth, where they cannot reach us but remind them, show them the pictures, tell the story---I can reach them all. There are many nations springing up, alien and mutant. Tell them that ****Eden**** has been reborn." **

**With that he turned and the walls and ceiling blew outward and he flew into the energy portal. **

**Viper dropped to a divan, clutching her hair, thankful that the mad mutants were gone. That she was safe from them. **

**Safety was her last thought as a hand snapped out of the darkness and she withered to dust, a gagging chortle from her throat. Selene chuckled, baring gleaming teeth as she absorbed a human who had been touched by many kinds of energy over a long lifetime, reforming from the shadows and looked out on the battered isle of Madripoor. It had been a long time since she'd so openly ruled a land. Selene opened her hands and eldritch energy lashed out from her fingertips, wards forming throughout the island then she took a deep breath and recalled the essence of Viper, like thinking of the taste of delicious food and slowly her features and garments became an exact replica of the slain woman. **

**Melbourne** **Australia**

**If possible the news, the worldwide media, was on overload. New York pummeled, Australia having vanished and reappeared, the appearance of Neramani, the pronouncements of Magneto and the energy bridge that had encircled the Earth for a week and then vanished along with its creator and thousands of mutants. The world was under siege, changing, literally mutating on a primal level. News stations on every end of the planet were overwhelmed with what to report on first there was too much to cover. The residents of planet Earth moved in stunned outrage at the possibility that anything could happen, anywhere could be next. **

**John Riedl had known he was a mutant for close to fifteen years. He'd been careful to keep his powers secret. There was a time when mutants were akin to hidden Nazis, then when they were celebrities and now when they were an accepted population, like homosexuals----integrated but not truly wanted, easy to ostracize. John had opted to not be a prisoner of his genetic structure and had instead kept his secret. He had known for a long time that as mutants became more and more popular and "out", he would one day be outted himself. But he wanted that precious time of illusions, of self delusion to last, to coddle with at night. **

**Then it had become common knowledge that the X-Men had an invisible city, some said as big as ****Sydney****, in the ****Southwest** **Territories****. They were responsible for the time that ****Australia**** had been swept with what appeared to be fireworks from coast to coast and the people of ****Australia**** later learned that the entire continent had vanished for several minutes. That had been a hard thing to swallow. There were still factions who claimed that it was the rest of the world that had lost its mind, whose senses had vanished, ****Australia**** had been spared, perhaps even saved by the X-Men. **

**Or damned by it. **

**John knew that the X-Men being on the same continent with him meant that the time was coming when he would be discovered. He hadn't expected it to be at ****3 AM**** in the morning with a costumed freak crashing through his window. A session on the Internet in the Naughty Down Under chat room was interrupted and John's life on the run had begun. He'd escaped out of his house, prepared for a long time to run, a duffel bag packed behind a group of bushes, a loaded Glock in the flower pot. He'd turned, firing at the man confidently moving towards him, until he sensed a dozen more that had the block surrounded. **

**That had been almost nine hours ago and he was amazed he was still alive, they'd been relentless. He'd finally found his way to a radio station and been working feverishly on broadcasting a signal towards the ****Southwest** **Territories**** when the fist had come through the wall. **

**"John, make this easy and stop running," Blackguard said smoothly, looking both sleek and menacing in a charcoal gray bodysuit with a shiny green chest carapace. "We simply want your ability to be used for a few small missions and then you can go on about your way. A rich man. A very rich man." **

**"Not interested," John said weakly, raising the Glock, his right arm had been wrenched in a tumbling fight with several of Blackguards men. The pain had gone beyond blinding and the arm was now just numb and nearly useless. **

**"You know bullets don't work on me," Blackguard grinned, a grizzled face, with a short goatee and bald head, he looked to be well into his sixties but his eyes twinkled with pleasure at the concept of fighting. Obviously a fellow mutant, whom John would've thought he could've preyed upon, emotionally played upon. But the look in the man's eyes said that he'd lived a life where emotion, where begging victims were something he'' learned to block out long ago. **

**"And you should know by now that I don't fire simply bullets," John fired the gun several times and the bullets seemed to spiral out then fly back at John. John raised his hand and each approaching bullet glowed as his hand was glowing and then stopped in midair turned and flew back at his enemy. **

**"Not this time!" Blackguard laughed and dove into the swirling maelstrom of bullets that were starting to glimmer and hum with energy. He slammed into John and the two went sailing across the room, John actually heard one of his ribs crack from the impact, he knew that landing would incapacitate him. The bullets were on the ground, his concentration having been broken, and the connection no longer active. He'd need to focus again, once he could breathe properly to use them. Then he saw Blackguard continue flying across the room, he'd passed through John's body and a slim young lady was clutching his shirt from behind, their bodies moving through all of the objects around them. **

**"X-Men, I presume?" John gasped. **

**"Shadowcat at your service. Next time broadcast a wee bit louder, our mainframe was almost overloaded by that radio boosted burst," she grinned. **

**"Sorry. I was amplifying the signal," John said sheepishly as they backpedaled through a wall, Blackguard hurling consoles and eventually crashing through a wall moving towards them. "I'm good at some things, things I can see but not at redirecting energy I can't see." **

**"He's mine, Shadowcat. Stay out of this, X-Man!" Blackguard shouted. **

**"Kiss my ass!" Shadowcat snickered. **

**"Later," Blackguard smirked until an energy blast slammed into him, sending him out of the radio station entirely. **

**"Rude, isn't he?" Sabine said, hand still sizzling with energy. **

**Shadowcat looked at the metamorph warily, he was wearing a yellow and blue X-Men training uniform, but she wasn't sure that she trusted him. A mutant clone gone rogue from a dangerous enemy, even that was a hard pill for her to swallow. **

**"Thanks, Sabine," Shadowcat nodded and turned to John. **

**"I can't let you take me in though, young lady," John said to Shadowcat and touched her shoulder, a violent shock raced through her body and they became tangible again, leaving her dazed on the floor. **

**Sabine turned to help his new teammate and a moment later the walls exploded in artillery fire from outside. Sabine dove to the floor on top of her, shielding her from the gunfire. **

**"Those would be my boys," Blackguard chuckled, running through the hail of bullets, which bounced harmlessly off of him, as he ran after John who'd slipped down a staircase. Halfway down the stairs, Marrow crashed up from under and snatched Blackguard down, a vicious grin on her face. **

**"You the new X animal?" Blackguard grinned then snapped a hard kick into her face. Marrow fell backwards then casually folded her back over, into a back flip, sharp bone daggers shooting from her stomach at him. Blackguard tried to swat several away but one caught him above the eye, ripping open the flesh. **

**"So you ain't invulnerable?" Marrow chuckled, rushing forward and stabbing him. "I guess this X animal is gonna get fed tonight." **

**"Not to the organic," Blackguard grunted angrily. "Seems you're the natural antithesis to my mutant power. Can't allow you to live, you understand?" **

**"Better have tried and failed," Marrow said as she ducked under a clumsy punch of his and came up with her own blow to his face. Blackguard caught her arm and slammed her through the wall, still following John who was rushing down a hallway, crouched low, the ground floor now under fire too. Blackguard continued to use Marrow's body as a battering ram through office furniture, walls, any obstruction, keeping parallel pace with John who was being herded by the gunfire towards one section of the building. **

**"We could use some help here, boys," Shadowcat said into her comm link as she phased herself and Sabine through the floor. **

**"Acknowledged," Sunspot said and sailed out of the Avery, hands erupting with black solar energy, striking down half a dozen of the commandos who were firing on the building. They turned and began firing upwards and the Avery swooped in front of Sunspot, repelling the gunfire with its armored underside. **

**"Thank you, Peter," Sunspot said over his comm link. "I've spotted our hunted mutant; I'm going to maintain coverage of him. Try and get him to safety." **

**"Acknowledged. We're going to take care of Blackguard and his group of bounty hunters," Shadowcat said as she and Sabine phased out of the building. They found a barely conscious Marrow on the ground, clearly hurt from Blackguard using her body. "Peter, get down here and pick up Marrow then track us and follow!" **

**"Has mutant hunting come to this?" Sabine asked calmly as they hurried along the darkened streets, police sirens faintly coming closer. **

**"There seem to be interested parties in Mr. Riedl and more importantly, they're willing to pay big bucks. There have been rumors of Blackguard snatching up mutants that fit a spec bill for the highest bidder. While I'd like to say the X-Men had the time and resources to be protecting Mr. Riedl in his time of need, it was Blackguard's appearance and mention in Riedl's SOS that really brought us here." **

**"And do we know what makes Mr. Riedl so special?" **

**"Well, his manipulation of electromagnetic fields would seem to be valuable. That's what it would take to shock me out of phase. There are a lot of creative and destructive uses for such a power if properly channeled." **

**"Kitty, I have a scan of close to twenty commandos running down, Mr. Riedl, how do you want me to proceed?" Spike comm linked from the Avery. **

**"Riedl is rightfully scared of them and us. Sabine, you are the best suited to hold off Blackguard, I'll deal with the commandos with Peter and Spike. Let's try and contain this before it gets out of control." **

**Thunderous booming cracks from the sky above heralded the arrival of an airship, four times larger than the Avery that was a menacing gun metal black. It silently turned and opened fire on the Avery and the city below. **

**"Ok, it's officially out of control," Shadowcat murmured. **

**Sanctuary: **

**Jessica stood on the third floor terrace of her cottage watching the sunrise, thinking about the five hundred or so things she had to deal with today. Mainly watching over security, internal and external, as the mutant refugees arrived. This whole place was starting to remind her of Wundagore where she'd started out her life, gotten her own powers, which had lead the spiral path of fate to bringing her to this mutant world. The outcast stigma of mutants had made them seem kin to her and here she was now their chief administrator. **

**Her fingers tensed on her mug full of iced coffee (only the insane could drink hot coffee in this heat) and she noticed that the dot in the sunrise was a swirl of clouds approaching. Fast. **

**"IT!" she snapped aloud as her body tensed. Her heightened senses, particularly her sight had picked up something small coming in fast under their radar. How the object was avoiding there electronic counter-measures was the real question. **

**"Here," IT answered calmly, his glowing green head appearing instantly next to her. **

**"We have incoming. Identify through satellite link ups. Alert the X Guard. General alarm, restrict everyone to their homes, maintain stations for the night watch," she rattled off having put together a top notch team out of the San Madre people in a little over a month. They had been more than eager to learn new skills and adapt to a new life and in particular secure a land that was free offered, and in large chunks, their own. **

**"Done," IT said without even blinking. "The object is generating a slightly out of phase electrical current that prevents our sensors from locking on to it. I would surmise that it can only be seen visually." **

**Jessica made a mental note to incorporate into his program blinking. She was about to retreat inside to slip into her X uniform when her eyes focused more and she gave a sigh of relief. **

**"IT stand down. Identity confirmed." **

**"Done." **

**Jessica waited less than five minutes for the mutant to cross close to fifty miles from the horizon, impressed at how she'd timed coming in with the sun to her back. It would have obscured all visual identification and there were inconsistent reports that several of the Roma/Siege Perilous affected X-men still had a natural cloaking to most electronic devices. **

**"Hello, my friend," Storm said regally, her cloak opening from a tight cocoon to a billowing sail as she landed calmly on the terrace. **

**"Testing our security? Trying to get shot down? You were almost our first official target practice," Jessica grinned as the two friends hugged. **

**"Jessica, I am many things. But trust that had I wanted to enter this township undetected, I could have. I will admit though that the security schematics the Institute has received are impressive. Even I would've been challenged," Storm smiled but there was an edge to her words. An emphatic promise of ability. **

**"And her?" Jessica said, dropping her mug, whirling around, snapping out a venom blast that caught Sage, who was moving stealthily through the bedroom towards them, in the hip. Sage dropped to one knee, a cold smile on her face. **

**"Now, I'm impressed," Sage said, the bio-electrical bolt having been on low so that it took her only a moment to recover. "According to my files you were no longer able to use your powers as the former Spiderwoman." **

**Jessica caught her mug before it hit the floor. "I compiled those files that I forwarded on to the Institute. I lied. About that and a few other things in case any of you or the mainframe was ever compromised." **

**Storm laughed heartily. "A warrior born, Jessica! Sage isn't easily impressed." **

**"I take it this isn't a social visit or to see the class arrive?" Jessica sipped her coffee. **

**"No. We have word of our compatriots. The Shi'ar contacted us from Neramani. Nightcrawler and Chamber are found," Storm beamed. **

**"But there are...complications," Sage added mysteriously. "You'll need this," Sage tossed Jessica her black leather X uniform. "We have to take a little jaunt courtesy of something non-trackable." **

**"That would mean Gateway," Jessica filled in. "To where?" **

**"To the Moon," Storm answered. **

**Asgaard: **

**She hadn't expected there time together to be so long or for her feelings to become so intense. She sat on the river's edge watching him bathe in the moonlight. With their psi rapport, she could feel him enjoying her appreciation of him, sight becoming almost as sensuous and sexual as touch. She'd discovered that Carlos was a bit vain; enjoying the attention she paid to him. She could see how a group relationship and psionic rapport was less disconcerting to him because of this. In fact, she thought that he was a little dependent on it to constantly be in place with someone. She'd seen in their shared dreams, his desire of ****Warren****. His desire for all of them. Even Deathbird. **

**He turned and walked up the beach towards her. She handed him an animal skin blanket and he sat down by the fire, smiling. **

**"It's been a long time...well as relative as possible for me...since I've spent so much time in the wild. No smog or noise or super villains with their nefarious plots," Carlos smiled and opened the blanket and Dani smiled and crawled in. **

**"We can try the spell again in a couple of days to get back home. I know you're worried about everything going on back there in spite of your enjoyment of here," Dani said, looking into the flames and feeling a sense of isolation from the others. **

**"And then confront perhaps a world torn asunder. We've been here close to three months traveling closer to these ancient mystical power points. I can feel them ebbing and flowing now. I can use that magic. But I wonder what will happen when we get back to Earth. We'll have a doubly powerful Marat to contend with. And over time the demon that was within me, will become more and more powerful within him. I've had hundreds of years to accustom myself to containing such evil, to limiting and even using some of the demon's power for my own. But Marat, he's a much easier vessel. I'm sure the X-Men could subdue him, and Ng would know how to imprison him with my militia but they won't be able to contain him as long as they might think. His magical nature alone will act like a focusing lens for the Beast," Carlos looked off distantly, his thoughts taking on a dark cast as he seemed to look into the night at their future. **

**Dani touched his face to bring his attention back to her. "Then we should make the most of now." She brought his face down and kissed him deeply then gasped. **

**Carlos touched her swollen belly. "Quite the kicker, eh?" **

**Dani blushed and then returned to their kiss, the night's chill making her pull closer to him in the blanket. **


	20. Allegiances, Part 2

**X-Men: Sanctuary # 20**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

Roll Call:

1. Black Bishop

2. Deathbird

3. Frenzy

4. Psyche

5. Iceman

6. M

7. Magma

8. Northstar

9. Hardcore

10. Peter Rasputin, Jr. 11. Akasa

12. Shadowcat

13. Spike

**Paris, France:**

Magma shrieked, enraged and blasted yet another vampire in front of her, the body sizzling and bursting into flames then melting. It had been almost a day and a half moving through the catacombs of Paris trying to destroy the Cult of Misery. Starting out with the cybernetically enhanced Hellfire Guards, she was down to less than a dozen plus her acolytes and the X-Men. She should've considered that Misery would've been breeding vampires for a long time, longer than she had ever estimated. That would have given her years to multiply the undead.

Magma reverted to her human form, her arm bleeding, her stomach lurching from the stench of flesh and blood. She opened her comm link. "We have no choice, we have to pull back."

"Amara, are you sure? We've made a strong cut through the general supply area. They seem to be abandoning the catacombs entirely," Karma replied over her comm link, five hundred feet ahead of her. To her right and left sides, Tran and Akasa were fighting back to back with her Hellfire acolytes, Chaxaza and Rigel. Magma couldn't help but see beyond this simple battle. Why continue it? She could lose too much here. Her newly acquired acolytes and the created Akasa.

Karma was of course wrapped up in the superhero nonsense that would lead to their deaths one day. But perhaps Tran would consider a change of allegiance?

She could flood the catacombs with lava but that would serve no purpose but eliminating what she suspected might be a resource. With great regret, Magma focused on the ground below them and above them, erupting the entire group into the streets of Paris within an earthen cocoon. Amazingly Magma felt dizzy and couldn't help but to start retching and when she opened her eyes, she wasn't in the streets of Paris, in fact if her earthen senses were correct she was a hundred feet behind solid rock from where she'd been.

Over her, dark cloak held back imperiously, grey flecked hair close cropped and eyes smoky and challenging, stood Misery.

The older woman smiled resolutely at her opponent and grabbed at her throat, moving with blinding speed. In the same instant Magma focused herself enough to ignite her arm into molten lava and grab Misery's throat. In her hand she felt, smelled and heard Misery's flesh bum and sizzle. Her own throat felt like it was being squeezed in a vise, she could almost hear her very bones being drawn abnormally out of sync. Though she was smaller, and looked to be in her late fifties, complete with graying hair and a clear but wrinkled face, she was as strong as two dozen men due to her vampire nature.

"I'll bum your head off," Magma whispered, almost her last gasp of air

gone.

"And then I'll rip yours off, child. I didn't plant the illusion in your mind moments ago to get you to move through the earth to me for either of us to die this day. I, however, will take longer to heal, while you will die. On the count of three?" Misery grimaced, her chin flesh beginning to drop off in burning globs.

Magma considered her options then nodded and on the count of three they

each released the other.

"If I hadn't of let you go?" Misery grinned darkly, having enjoyed such a

challenging opponent.

"I would've burned you with my last thought," Magma assured.

Misery nodded, stretching her neck as the flesh healed quickly, her injuries

repairing so quickly Magma wondered if the depth of them had been more mind illusions.

"You didn't trick me apart from my allies to simply kill me. You know what I want?" Magma enflamed her whole body to light up the large cavern, making sure there were no more vampires around them. They were alone.

"Your thoughts revealed it to me. Your vengeance was too systematic to be anything but absolute intent to another end," her adversary grinned darkly.

"You're being backed into a war by your new associates."

"I need allies," Magma said simply.

"For your new reign as Hellfire whore?" Misery chuckled.

"I prefer Queen. Red Queen," Magma said dryly.

Misery nodded politely, trying to contain her rage at the attack upon her complex. "What ever could an old woman who commands a few undead help you with ?"

"I'll give you a position in my court for your allegiance and I'll protect you from the IRC," Magma promised.

"I have my own court. My own position. Can you even fulfill your offer to me?""

"In sewers. In the night. You're a woman of this century, not old enough to have forgotten that which you've lost. You yearn for it, I'm sure. But you have no patrons to escort you into the land above and your kind have made enemies. The me and now the X-Men. Two enemies that will destroy you, completely. If not today then very soon. This is the B team. What if I bring the A squad next time?"

Misery drew her wrap closer, her eyes flashing with both contempt and interest. Magma had struck a nerve. The desire for things that darkness could not fill, especially from a woman who'd known the light.

_Join her, _whispered Misery's master. At first she was startled then she relaxed into the thought of all going as planned.

"A Red Queen of name and now of blood," Misery smiled. "But I will need you to house a hundred of us. That's all that's left, if you won't allow us to take new blood. But we can discuss the details later. Call off your people and my people will cease fighting as well. Cross me though, mutant and I'll find a way to wreck havoc beyond your mortal comprehension." Misery bared incredibly long canine teeth, her jaw snapping suddenly to accommodate opening her mouth so wide.

"I wouldn't expect you to do anything else, my Red Rook," Magma said and let her mind flow out to Akasa who had touched her mind as soon as she'd vanished. _We've won, my pet, _she thought at him.

_Was our victory ever in doubt? _he replied.

**New York, New York:**

Jean-Paul was surprised at what happened.

_These are some things that a man cannot escape during a full moon. Even_

_though I knew it was a full moon that night, I couldn't see it through the thick flannel blanket of moisture-laden clouds that hovered above the beach. Watching pensively out the window, the rain looked like strings of tinsel during the dark night of Christmas. It was cold and wet outside, and I was miserable, aching for something I couldn't define __or even name.except for one name, I yet felt haunted to somehow remember. It_

_was as if my very spirit called out for something in a wordless plea. Finishing the scotch that should have warmed me from the inside, I went to bed, still troubled by __persistent longings that had no name, and more importantly, no tangible reason. _Jean-Paul knew that the ecstasy was real.

_If the sound of the front door opening woke me up, I will never know; however, __the persistent sound of water dripping upon the carpet of the floors, coming closer to the bedroom, is indelibly stamped in my memory. The windows opened, causing the curtains to billow violently inward as the storm beat at the screens, candlelight silhouetting Bobby. But it couldn't be him, he wasn't here._

Bobby.

_Later, I wouldn't be able to recall the sound, and I wasn't aware of having woken up, yet I knew I couldn't be asleep. The gauze at the windows lay lifeless, but a thick mist was taking form in the room, solidifying, emerging in the shape of a man. His hair moved in wisps, like a shroud formed of mist, and Bobby was moving toward __me silently, stealthily._

Bobby was in his arms. Safe as he had always intended, always desired. _The curtains' movement seemed to seek to deceive me, and my awareness of_

_him gathered like the fabric that swirled around his body in a caress. The more I strained to see him, the more the mist drew around him like a veil of vagueness; and as I let go, the clearer Bobby became, a key dangling around his neck. Like the mist itself, Bobby was more than I could comprehend. I knew that the fire in the verdant vastness of his eyes was real; their intent held darkness, yet pleasure and an invitation. Bobby looked to the door, and I watched it slowly swing closed, sealing us in together. Bobby briefly glanced at the windows and the wind calmed, yet the atmosphere remained in a kind of surreal churning of motion. Turning to me again, his emerald eyes riveted on mine, flashing dangerous and blazing in urgent need. Bobby gazed hotly at me, in __silent askance, a small smile playing at the comers of his lips._

He a creature of air and speed, catching one of water and ice.

_I was mesmerized, watching him glide toward me, suddenly unaware of __anything except him, his chest beneath the flowing velvet that caressed him, a somehow living and colorless fabric that covered his body, moving with his deep breathing, nipples straining against the magic of the ever transforming cloth as if __reaching for me; something apart from him, yet totally part of me _.

Since coming together they hadn't spent a night apart.

_I was suddenly conscious that the thick, down coverlet had been pulled down __around my knees, and yet could not remember doing so, nor was I cold, although the wind and rain raged as harshly as my hardness did, a feeling wrapping around me like something independent of my being. Bobby touched my shoulder, slowly trailing his __fingers over my chest, trailing along my waist, our eyes locked in unflinching desire, __his touch feeling like a languorous fire that melted me beyond submission._

Jean-Paul had expected Bobby to be trepidations, to be fearful or hesitant.

_His eyes meet mine, gazing down the full length of my body, clad only in silk __pajama bottoms, closed with a thin cord. I'd ordered them from India, I thought suddenly, as though Bobby had asked me how they'd come to be there. His deep cinnamon tanned hand played lower, his lips parting slightly as Bobby pulled at the cord, sliding it from its twists and loop without a movement of his wrist. Lifting my head just enough to watch him, my senses reeled. Bobby looked at me, and I answered by lifting my hips in reply, the feeling of his fingers tugging them downward both exquisite and troubling. The soft silk slid down with such slow deliberateness that there was no other feeling I could ever remember having-until his hands found me, fingers cupping under my shaft, wrapping one at a time around it, his skin cool and supple. The wind should have produced a chill, yet his hand around my shaft was warm, alive. My pleasure was painfully insufficient._

So many positions pursued and pain slipping into ecstasy; Bobby had demanded a versatility from them both.

_Bobby began to stroke my cock, taking such infinite care with each stroke that I __realized my hips were arching upwards of their own accord, trying to will him to move __faster before 1 lost my mind. Yet Bobby persisted, watching my responses with an increasing drive to possess me. Finally, when 1 thought Bobby could taunt me no more, Bobby lowered his mouth to my cock and began to slowly suck at me, tongue dipping, licking, moving in circles as his mouth lowered on my ragingly hard flesh, each inch swallowed making my hands convulse into his hair in tandem with his mouth. And still Bobby sucked, my breathing hard and raspy, my throat becoming raw from the force of my gasps. His mouth was a fire melting me into submission, rendering me powerless to resist, even had 1 wanted to._

Lost to the pleasure.

_Just as 1 thought 1 was beginning to cum, and could take nothing more, Bobby_

_suddenly moved his head back, his hand leaving my cock. The shock was like a howl in my chest. 1 knew with growing frustration that Bobby had willed me to stop, more than any physical manipulation Bobby could have done._

Lost to Bobby.

_1 looked at him, trying to form the words, "No, 1 must have you, _" _when Bobby __smiled slowly, pulling down the fabric into wads in his hands, inching it up at the sides so it draped before him, preventing me from seeing what 1 so longed to see, barely visible beneath the shimmering folds of the cloth. 1 seemed capable only of groaning and clutching spasmodically at the Bobby, twisting them into knots. Bobby responded by gathering his shirt over one arm, pushing the shoulder off to reveal his chest, his nipple hard._

Lost to Bobby.

_Bobby kneeled, then straddled my hips, his free hand again surrounding my __shaft, rubbing it against his mound, slipping it just inside his hands, then stroking it against his parted thigh before pulling on my cock, as 1 jutted down again and again, trying desperately to rub my aching tip against his teasing hands, forcing moans from me, a sound as formless as the wind outside. My hands gripped his hips, but Bobby delayed me, pushing up against my hands in such a way that forcing myself up towards him wasn't possible. Bobby possessed me with the surprising strength of his thighs and my inability to have my way. Bobby chuckled knowingly at my inability to subvert his will His smell filled my nostrils, sweet and salty, and 1 became maddened with the need to sink my shaft inside his hands, against the friction of his palms, bury it hard, his stroking and laughter becoming faster, harder. 1 struggled to thrust my cock upwards with futile movements, feeling both insane desire and fear, his body warmth and his chill, my dream man and a powerful spirit. My hands were powerless to resist him, and powerless to have my way with him, as if tied with the same thin cord that had bound my pajamas._

Lost to Bobby.

_Bobby lowered himself on top of my cock, again moving slowly down over me __the way his mouth had just done, with infinite purpose and a slowness of movement that made me fight his hips with my hands, still to no avail As Bobby moved himself down along my cock, inch by inch, 1 felt every nerve screaming as Bobby engulfed me, muscles as taut and controlled as his hands were. Once Bobby had me fully under him, he stopped and looked down at me, his hair changing with each spill of light from the window-short and neatly cut, swept back,-dripping with water,-all the ways I'd_

_seen him--eyes lit from within, nostrils flaring with passion, his lips parted as his tongue traced my lower lip. I somehow knew in my illusion-fogged head that I was_

_feeling it as if it were my own lip Bobby was licking, in a slow half-moon with the __flattened underside of his tongue._

Lost to Bobby.

_Just then, Bobby began to move, thrusting himself up and down my cock with __hard, even strokes, squeezing me tightly, his cock along my thighs, against my own, along my stomach. I could feel every bit of him, every bit of me, every movement, every nuance of his muscles milking my cock as if they were his fingers, and I arched my hips up to meet him, my hands finally not meeting resistance over his hips, pushing him down hard before Bobby fought to slide his hips back up and away from me, slipping up until just the tip was touching him. That's when Bobby gripped me the hardest, when I thought Bobby had moved up too high and I'd slip away from him. My sounds of pleasure were, in my reeling head, a confusion of intermingled pleasured moaning and nightmarish shrieks. As Bobby straddled me, my cock buried deep against him, I could feel the parallel that Bobby engulfed me both physically and spiritually. With each stroke Bobby pulled up and I caught his rhythm, pulling me back down in the eternal dance between us, the ebb and flow of leaving and beginning, taking and giving-plumbing the mystery of becoming one._

Lost to Bobby.

_I felt my orgasm rise from somewhere deeper than I'd ever known before, like a __hot wave that threatened to take my sanity somewhere unfathomable. And still Bobby __plunged on, still I thrust my hips up to meet his, my hands forcing down his body over my cock, building until I threw my head back, feeling the rush rising up to flow through my throat as I begged for release. Bobby groaned his assent and squeezed tightly, like a hot, wet vise that massaged and pulled me deeper within him. I came at the same time that Bobby did, with violent thrusts, shredded screams of the violent orgasms that freed us, even as it drained us, entering into someplace utterly and completely whole. As if in recognition of the power of such a release, thunder cracked sharply outside, lightening ripping the room in shocked and fragmented light, casting electric white eeriness across his body over mine. Over and over, my orgasm was forced through me, until I thought I'd die from pleasure before the next spasm Bobby surged through me, and I fervently hoped it would never end._

Lost to Bobby.

_I awoke the next morning, my pajamas still around my knees, the windows __closed, the room silent._

_"A dream," I whispered hoarsely, getting out of bed to shower._

_As I ran the hot water, preparing to step in, I noticed that my belly and chest __was sticky with steam-moistened cum, and felt slightly foolish._

_Bobby, I thought, I haven't woken to that in a long time._

_And then, wiping the moisture from the mirror to gaze at my reflection, I __noticed the perfume that emanated from my very pores; rich, redolent of headiness and_

_exotic flowers I knew I'd never smelled before. And I knew that if I looked at the floor leading from the front door to the bedroom, there would be rain spatters and the water prints of small feet, leading to my bed._

Lost to Bobby.

Lost to Bobby. Lost to Bobby. Lost to Bobby. Lost.

Diamonds falling from the ceiling onto Jean-Paul's head.

Lost.

Falling and cutting away the feelings.

Lost.

Cutting away the pleasure and finally Jean-Paul gasped and fell to one knee. "I'm here," Monet said calmly, her left eye aflame with a diamond form.

"Take deep breaths. Focus on my voice."

"What just happened?" Jean-Paul grunted, he was trembling in ecstasy and the more he regained his senses the more he became ashamed. He pushed away

from Monet, his body sweaty and sticky from perspiration andmore.

"Mon dieu! What happened to me! What was done to me!"

"A psi. A sexual psi. Very specific telepathic keying in on to someone's

reality and desires, heightening them beyond your natural ability to discern illusion," Monet explained.

Jean-Paul started to get his bearings. They were in a small Brooklyn tenement. They'd followed Paulie here through Gateway's portal. Had an argument with him, Bobby had left after him and then a group of people came into the room. Two men and a woman. No, not a real woman. An illusionist of some sort. Three men then. One was telekinetic who had held them in place while the man dressed as a woman had delved into their minds.

"And what did that tranny bitch bring to your mind, Monet?" Jean-Paul murmured, anything to distract him from the thought that he'd shared something so deeply personal with not one but two telepaths in such a short time.

"Tranny? Oh, you mean transsexual? That would make sense. There was an overwhelming psi sense of sexualization. Mine was family bullshit. My brother

Emplate. It wasdisconcerting but it was garbled, harried. I suspect yours was so deeply real because it was more memory than illusion. Just memory heightened to seem real again. We've only been out of it for about fifteen minutes, they didn't expect me to be telepathic. The telepath was never trained by another telepath, has worked on these sexual illusions to represent him or herself. Makes sense."

"They're after Paulie?" Jean-Paul asked.

"Yes. He used to live here?" Monet said looking around at the same apartment. "His family is up the block. He wasn't too happy about our having

followed him. He thinks it's about Pryde wanting the gauntlets off of him."

"Isn't it?" Jean-Paul grunted.

"I can mentally sense his body's dependence on them. It's getting more and more pronounced. We also have to remember that they are alien. I know our enemy list is impressive but we can't sacrifice our humanity for them."

Jean-Paul sped from the room into the bathroom and took a shower that lasted all of a minute then returned. "That was suitably humiliating. I normally don't masturbate in front of women."

****

**The Moon:**

Sage, Storm and Jessica Drew stepped out of the portal created by Gateway and into a high tech area. Behind them a large window showed the surface of the Moon and most shockingly, a crescent sliver of Earth. Jessica tensed slightly as her enhanced hearing picked up dozens of heartbeats around her. But not human. Faster. A quick sniff and she knew they were Shi'ar. Ambassador Nei," Storm nodded politely at the older Shi'ar male who walked closer. The regal older Shi'ar nodded politely then waved an arm towards a

long corridor. Storm nodded back and the three women proceeded further into the complex following the somber man in dark gold robes.

"I take it no one knows that the Shi'ar have a base on the Moon? Jessica said after nodding politely at the ambassador.

"Our---development on your planet, especially since the depositing of Neramani has been many times faster than you or your world governments would expect. We arrived with technology ahead of yours. We annexed the Moon as soon as our baffle field went up. A short distant jaunt with smaller versions of Stargates was easy to create and then bring us here. Emperor Canaan's decision to banish loyalists to Lady Lilandra, while controversial, is not as vicious as your people see U. He left us with technology far more advanced than yours though not as advanced as the majority of the Empire possesses."

"And why are you here?" Jessica asked carefully.

"Emperor Canaan released two of your X-Men from prison with us who are exiled. Chamber and Nightcrawler." Nei shrugged grimly.

"Jon and Kurt are here? That's wonderful! They were assumed lost, dead possibly after the Shi'ar-Brood incident. But why are you letting them be kept here, Storm? Why all the secrecy? Why do I get the feeling that this isn't a good thing?"

"Because they have been mentally and chemically altered. To what purpose we don't know. Because they were aliens, we kept them segregated during our transport. However as we have determined that they are no threat to Lady Lilandra, we wish to release them to you."

"But now we suspect that they are meant to do something else. Perhaps as moles within the X-Men," Sage offered. "My suggestion is that we terminate both, eliminating the threat."

Jessica nodded then turned to Storm. "And what is the opinion of those of us with a pulse and sense of loyalty and ethics?"

Storm grinned slightly at the sarcasm then shook her head. "Kurt is one of my oldest and dearest friends and Jon is but a child in my eyes. I want to release them to your custody, Jessica but I need you to do something. Not tell either of them what we have discovered about them, that they are potential plants."

Jessica looked at the two transparent tubes where Jon and Kurt, nude, were suspended in a gelatinous fluid. There was a dull glow from Jon's chest but his chest through his face was charred. His powers seemed completely suppressed. She almost felt sorry for him enough to suggest that they kill both of them. She'd been in the intelligence field early in her life. She'd made hard decisions before. Kurt was nearly a grayish blue and his face was so darkly somber from the smiling face she knew.

"My suggestion was logical. There was no pleasure in it," Sage said.

"I know," Jessica sighed. "Ok, we'll take them back. Same story but we'll delete the Moon part for the others. No talk of what ever fuddling has been done with them and I'll keep tight tabs on them. Have them on tight Sanctuary duty until we can---until when, Storm? What is the resolution of this? Emma deprogramming them?"

"That brings me to the next part of my plan," Storm smiled.

**Savage Land:**

Quantum fell to his knees on a stone floor, icy needles cutting into his head, his mind, his very being. He looked up and a greenish astral form of Channel stood before him.

"What's happened to me?" Quantum grimaced.

"You've served your purpose. 1 brought you here, with all of your immense

power to one of the places on Earth that would create a unnatural/natural magnetic disturbance from first the Earth and then through the vibranium and mystical elements of this land. You've been a wonderful symbiotic but now 1 need simply a form. A body. I discovered in Xavier's notes so many ways of beating you but the rub was finding a way to subdue you long enough to replace you."

"You bastard!" Quantum shrieked, his hands flailing uselessly as his whole body began to convulse.

"It took time to figure out how to do this from the inside out as it were but now I understand your power and my own and more importantly how to use one to control the other." Channel leaned down and snatched out a rainbow astral form, a luminescent astral form that reverberated and sparkled with energy. "Such a shame to throw something so beautiful away. But I need the body and not you," Channel chuckled and the greenish energy encompassed the astral form of Quantum and then collapsed it into a sparkle that vanished. Deliberate as if putting on a fine suit, Channel lifted the limp form of Quantum and stepped into it.

"Oh, this is going to be good," Channel said to him as he stepped out on to the stone balcony of the temple and looked down upon tens of thousands of mutants building a city. Building Eden.

Below the stone balcony a thin young Asian girl who's passive mutation of size control within a foot or two of her own frame had made her an instant gopher in the new city, watched Quantum. It had been a mistake for Xavier to not kill both of the mutants in Quantum's Magneto's form when he had the chance. It was perhaps the most dangerous thing he'd ever done besides leaving the original Magneto alive. Xavier's weaknesses cost so many lives that it was becoming

ridiculous, she thought in disgust. How to get closer to this new enemy to slit his throat would be a challenge.

But then again that's why she'd been sent to infiltrate this Jim Jones party.

****

**Zi, China:**

The ropes with mystical inscriptions that bonded her to the chair were tight to the point of actually cutting off the feeling of any pain. On the floor were various crude but effective wards, he'd obviously done his homework enough to know how to bind a mystic. With her hands tied in such a manner she couldn't cast a counter sigil. She had been laying on the floor on the small palace for several hours by her count. She couldn't be sure. Something was blocking her mystical senses, though not mystical in nature, most likely drugs, and tranquilizers. Particularly the sense that knew time. If she hadn't been so badly injured recently she would've been able to cast off the bonds, snap them like a thread. But he'd caught her a. her weakest ebb.

This hadn't been part of the plan she thought as the Mandarin calmly entered, wearing a casual suit and turtleneck as if he were doing nothing more than entertaining guests. She'd seen him before in intelligence reports but to see him in person. He carried himself like a king or an ancient feudal lord. Piercing eyes and a stare that conferred he was used to being immediately served. His hand glowed

and one of the ten rings emitted a beam that lifted her into a chair.

"Are you ready to speak to me yet? To divulge your secrets?" he asked.

"My secrets are my own," she whispered.

"You're part of a much larger plan, aren't you? You and the Alex gentleman think you're smarter than others. Than even me? That others wouldn't notice?"

"Is it hubris or a sense of inferiority that has you so upset on not being in on a battle for all reality?" she challenged.

He took her sword from a nearby table and held it up to the light. "I ask you once more for the secrets you know."

"To hell with you."

"I'll see you there," he said casually and swiped the sword through her throat. She shrieked as she heard her own head crash to the floor.


	21. Neramani: Pt 1 Arrival

**X-Men: Sanctuary**

**Issue # 21**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

**Neramani: Arrival Part 1**

**Brooklyn, New York, **

**85th Precinct:**

"Ok, so here's what happened. My mends came to check up on me. Protect me really. I'm like the unofficial leader of the team so they basically spend a lot of time watching out for my ass. Mutants are like that. Well, more like dedicated mends and team mates. It's like a military group, really. I was in the Marines, you know?" Paulie explained calmly in the interrogation room to the two detectives, Smits and Franz.

"And that's when you got jammed up? When your mends came down here and went mutie crazy?" Franz, pot bellied and balding, snickered.

"There were these other mutants," Paulie snapped. "Bad mutants. Evil mutants. The Brooklyn Evil Mutants."

"Ok, back up," Smits said calmly, tall, handsome, decked out in Armani. "How did these evil mutants know where to find you? Is it those gay bracelets?"

"Fucking fruity," Franz laughed. Paulie glared at both of them and was tempted to show what he could do but the X-Men had a Prime Directive or something about being nice to the cops and not showing off your powers. Besides the powered down bracelets looked like thin hospital plastic bracelets. He could walk through a metal detector without anyone suspecting what was but a thought away.

"Lots of X-Men gay?" Franz asked.

"No. Well, I don't know. Northstar is. I think Frenzy is. Ummm there was this Karma rumor and then Iceman has gone all cocksucky."

"Cocksucky?" Smits asked.

"Yeah, it's like because he can transform his whole body due to moisture control, he's all about the exploration of his identity as not just a man but as a being you know? It's like really deep if you think too hard about it, so I don't. Anyway I came back because I got a message from my family."

"Now would this be part of the Provenzano crime family?" Franz asked.

"Crime is such a harsh term. I sort of started one for a while but then it fell through when I had to go help the X-Men fill their depleted ranks of some true power. I know it's hard for you guys to understand our world but a few weeks ago we actually saved a whole planet like billions of miles away."

Both officers were silent.

**Sanctuary**

**Australian Outback:**

The first sensation was a taste of mint in his mouth. Then blinding lights from above. The lights didn't so much disturb him as the taste of mint did. He hadn't tasted anything in quite some time as he had no face. Jono sat up abruptly in the Medical Center and Cecelia smiled at him. A rare smile as she was often frowning and upset at one thing or another.

"I'm alive," Jon rasped.

Cecelia rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "And not much brighter since I saw you last. "

"The Brood? The Shi'ar?" he asked, looking around and realizing where he was. Back on Earth. "The San Madre people?"

"Dead. Saved and some banished to Earth. Safe and integrated into Sanctuary. In that order. You might notice that you have a face. I understand that the Shi'ar did some reconstructive work. Take a look," she handed him a small mirror and he took it with a trembling hand. Sure enough his lower face and chest has been restored.

"My God!" he gasped.

"Be careful, Jon. It's something to do with the neck carapace you're wearing. Over time you'll learn how to not blow your head off and use your powers. Until then I want you to keep it on and avoid sending out those psi plasmoid bursties you do. You might destroy it."

"I will. 1 will," Jon assured then looked over at the other occupied bed. Kurt was sitting up grinning at him, Jessica Drew standing at the foot of both of their beds, staring intently. For a brief second Jon got an empathic flash of concern---fear---a sense of threat and urgencyfrom her about them then she caught his eye and slammed down her psi shields. At first he was suspicious then Jon remembered how before her superheroing days, she'd been deeply steeped in espionage agencies. It was natural, he'd found, when around psis for former agents to close their thoughts off. More by reflex than anything else.

"It seems we were misplaced for some time in the conflagrating battle," Kurt grinned, fangs gleaming but eyes bright with joy at being home again. Jon found that his empathic senses were much stronger than normal, but his telepathic speech seemed somehow muted or dulled. He wanted to push it but there was a fuzziness around his telepathy, perhaps that was the carapace?

"I need the two of you back on active duty within the next twenty four hours. I've uploaded mission statuses to your room comms. There have been a few occurrences you'll need to be abreast of. Until the next team review in one month, the two of you are needed here to manage mutant student arrivals as well as Sanctuary security. It may not sound glamorous but once you read the last few weeks of activity, you'll see that I need experienced, seasoned X-Men by my side ASAP. I'll see you two tomorrow morning at the Eastern landing platform for the orientation of the first Institute arrivals. Welcome back, gentleman," with that clipped speech Jessica turned and headed out the door, IT appearing next to her as the next phase of base management began between the two of them.

"It's been rough on her keeping all the pieces together. Don't mind her attitude, she's got a lot of weight on her shoulders managing one of the biggest possible terrorist targets on Earth," Cecelia explained as she went back to her desk and checked the schematics for a fully operational medical center that would have to be up and running in a few days. Kitty has a team running down some mutant hunters in Melbourne, I think it is, and Warren's squad is in Europe about to tangle with the Hellfire Club again or some vampires or something. It's been busy as hell getting the whole facility ready to receive an estimated one hundred thousand mutants over the next year."

"A hundred thousand!" Kurt was surprised.

"Yup. It seems Xavier has had this concept in mind for years and a laundry list of folks ready to participate. We'll be the next Genosha in under three years by conservative estimates. A small portion are students, the rest are the infrastructure of a city, of a nation. Welcome to Mutant City 101."

"Why be conservative?" Alex smiled brightly as he strolled in. "Sanctuary was constructed to bridge the gap between human and mutant civilization in a very realistic way. I just came in to say hi to two of our returning heroes. We've had a few injuries but the team is raring and ready to go."

"There's no one here," Cecelia pointed out. "There is no here raring to go anywhere. Even the Juggernaut was called back to the Institute in New York. There was a lot of shit in New York that you guys missed. A lot of people died there. The news says the estimate is close to two hundred and fifty thousand missing. Check the mission files, it was bad."

"Yes, it was. Very bad. Ah. Well, carry on then," Alex nodded and left a holographic image of IT's floating head appearing next to him as he left.

"Does everyone get a little head when they leave a room?" Kurt asked.

"Don't look at me, I'm not giving out head," Cecelia grinned.

"I have a pretty big head," Jon observed in the handheld mirror.

"I do hope we're all talking about the same thing," Kurt snickered.

**Sydney, Australia:**

Kitty hunched her shoulders in closer, the raincoat bare protection against the torrential downpour that had been over the city for the past few hours. The fact that she'd failed as mission leader, several times in her own estimation, didn't help the dreary day look any better. The fact that they'd lost John Riedl and Blackguard in Melbourne after the commandos team had attacked them with their bigger ship, still irked her. But she was glad that John had found a way to escape, to get to this capital city. He probably hadn't suspected that while she'd phased him, she'd also phased into his body a subcutaneous tracker in case they were separated. While she had faith in her squad to stop Blackguard, she wasn't sure they'd be able to quickly convince John to trust them so she'd prepared for his escape. Properly focused he was as powerful a mutant as Quantum, who had taken his leave of Madripoor which left her with another bitter taste in her mouth.

Without slowing down she phased into a building and then walked on air up through several apartments, careful that none of the residents saw her until she came upon a front door. She'd purposefully chosen not to phase inside, wanting to show some respect. She knocked on the door, listened to the shuffling inside and then was a little surprised as the door swung open.

John half grinned at her but it was a tired smile. "I thought you were my food I'm having delivered."

"Can I come in, John?"

He waved her into the small apartment and she stepped in, hitting a small pad in her pocket that signaled the hovering Avery that she'd found him and that all was fine, so far.

"I hope none of your friends got hurt in Melbourne?" John said as he sat down on the couch. He looked worn out, like he was tired of running but not desperate. Simply exhausted. She knew the feeling.

"I'm glad you got away from Blackguard. How did you get away?"

"I found some railroad tracks. It's a bit of a secret use of my powers but I can skate along grounded electrical fields. Takes a lot out of me and I have to watch out for trains and such but for a quick burst I can cover a hundred miles in a short span. Also once I figured out that they were tracking my brain wave energy I made some alterations to that."

Kitty nodded in understanding. "Drugs? That's why you're so calm."

"Yes. It takes a lot of drugs to keep my brainwaves down to normal level and I have to refrain from use of my powers but thanks to a bit of fast research at the local hospital I think I can maintain this for awhile."

"Ok, then what? Spend your whole life doped up to avoid whatever reason Blackguard wants you for? Men like him, men committed to their missions, find their

prey eventually. I found you."

"A telepath?" John asked.

"A tracker inside your body. I can be sneaky", she smiled.

"When you phased us? Ok. I can see that. I can even sense it in me now. The drugs make focusing harder. So now what? Asylum with the X-Men?"

"In a way. And maybe another option as well. It will require that you let our doctor give you something to boost your metabolism so that you broadcast your

brainwaves again."

"To draw Blackguard in?"

"Were you really busy with your pizza delivery tonight? Why not spice up the evening?"

"It was Chinese and I can't see how I have a choice."

The front door flew open and Blackguard walked in. John was sitting on the couch, his arm still tied with a belt and a syringe nearby.

"Using drugs to dull your brainwaves so we couldn't track you? But your signal flashed bright and clear a few minutes ago. Why?" Blackguard asked.

"Two reasons. One, I don't want to be on the run for the rest of my life. Two, I want the money you promised me. Take me to your leader, as it were," John said as he stood up and the two men left the apartment. Several minutes later, Kitty phased out of the closet holding John who was groggy.

"Did it work?"

"Sabine was a perfect double of you and your quick broadcast allowed Blackguard to find you and then I injected you and knocked you out. As far as he's concerned he has you. Now we get to bust up his real plan before anyone gets hurt."

"Oh goody," John said weakly as she phased them back through the wall.

**China, Somewhere:**

Nemesis sat bound.

Her head still attached.

He'd used his mento ring to intensify the illusion of torture constantly upon her. No matter how much she knew it wasn't real she still shrieked and cried everytime, howling as fingers were shattered, muscles ripped from her flesh. The point was these respite periods, shorter each time. So that she would come to crave not being affected by his ring and tell him what he wanted to know. What he had no right to know.

She had prepared herself for war at the hands of her true foe but never these fools who called themselves villains. Their greatest power was not playing the way the supposed heroes did. Nemesis had ceased being a hero when she'd left her reality, her time to come to this Prime Reality to save not just the billions on this Earth but the trillions on all Earths.

She looked around, her breathing ragged, knowing the Mandarin would be back soon. But she had abilities beyond her fighting, beyond her mystical talents (that were useless with all of the counter wards around her body). It also didn't hurt that she was a mutant as well. A glowing light disc appeared at the far end of the room under the sword itself and then a moment later it reappeared in the same space but this time with a split second regression into the past. She focused and repeated the same maneuver a dozen times until the sword itself occupied the same space in the same second and then she activated it. The mystical explosion sent her flying backwards over her chair, more flash and force than true destructive power. But enough to shatter the chair and nee her hands. She quickly traced a sigil on the floor and it shattered whatever wards the Mandarin had set around her chair. With a hand up, her sword appeared in it just as the first force blast from the Mandarin smashed down upon her. Her sword blocked most of it but she still skidded across the polished wood floor.

"Nemesis, 1 know enough of your plans to change the time stream to expose you to your teammates. Consider that," with those clipped words came a flash of dark force energy that snapped across the room and grabbed her like tendrils. She slashed her sword through them but they instantly reattached themselves.

She knew that she had one last option and now that she thought about it, she could see quite a few uses. She focused on the spot across the room where she'd created the stepping discs under her sword and re-focused again. Drawing her vision back through time for several minutes so that her sword was there again but this time, she altered the disc itself so that the sword appeared first upright then she brought it closer and closer and closer to her.

The Mandarin turned and tried to blast the flashing sword that was actually hurling towards him, end over end, as she made it reappear in time and space dozens of times until it flew and landed in his back. He grunted in pain long enough for a disc to appear around her. The Mandarin shrieked angrily and dove at her, grasping her throat as she began to vanish.

"I will come for you!" he raged and Nemesis grinned then drove the sword in her hand into his chest. With a quick swipe of her sword, she slashed off his left hand, grasping it and the five rings it held.

"No!" he shrieked, blood spurting allover the both of them. "I will come for you!" he roared again.

"I expect you will. When you get better," she grinned as he lost his grip and she vanished, with his left hand.

**Above the Indian Ocean:**

"This so not good," Kitty said to Peter as they watched the large airborne gunship that Blackguard had his commandoes and Sabine on. It was completely circular, almost three stories high and over a hundred feet wide, brilliant red with a sharp metal protruding point. It seemed to be using some sort of gyro based system to maintain flight as an outer shell on the circumference spun in one direction to generate the anti-gravity field it used to fly.

"From what I can ascertain from the my scanning of them, Blackguard's ship radiates a null field. It is invisible to all conventional scanners as well as the Shi'ar ones on Neramani. I'm able to track it because of the attack on Melbourne, I launched a small tracker onto it's outer hull," Peter explained to the X-Men crowded in the front cabin.

"Ok, when are our missions ever "good"?" Cecelia asked. "This is definitely some international bullshit we're about to get into. You know that, right? We gonna die like poked pig bitches."

"Someone's been watching Oz again on DVD," Marrow grinned leaning over to look out the view screen.

"I like Oz," Sunspot defended as he checked the computer sensors again. "We are most definitely exactly forty thousand feet above the nation of Neramani. Our cloaking shields are keeping us hidden from both Blackguard's sensors and Neramani's. I'm proud to say that the Avery's systems from the alternate dimension Shi'ar force is quite superior to the Shi'ar tech below us."

"They were abandoned to this world," Peter interjected. "I would assume that Canaan gave them basic technology, considerably higher than Earth's, yet still lower than advanced Shi'ar tech."

Kitty checked her instrument panel again. "That's good to know for the future but the question is what does Blackguard intend to do?"

"I think I know," John Riedl answered from the back cabin looking out the window.

"Don't be shy, speak up," Cecelia invited.

John hesitated for a moment then spoke. "I can see energy patterns. I can see this large glowing mass below us."

"The Shi'ar force field," Sunspot clarified. '"No one can get in unless they allow."

John shook his head, pointing at several energy measurement waves on the computer screens. "Actually, I think if! really tried I could. I think I could pierce the Neramani shield by manipulating electromagnetic waves. It's theoretical but I've had a lot of time to consider my powers. I don't think I could shut it down but maybe get my body or a few bodies through."

"To what end?" Peter asked. "Blackguard, I mean. Exactly why would he go to all of this trouble?"

"Steal technology. Kill Lilandra. Those would be my top two guesses. Someone didn't hire him to kidnap John, they hired him to breach Neramani and John was just the key he needed," Sunspot answered. "No matter the treaties brokered and set, there are nations on this planet that would kill anyone or destroy anything to possess Neramani's resource's---they've radically upset the world socially, spiritually and economically. Even Israel isn't this disruptive to the fabric of Earth itself."

"I'm sorry, I understand that girlfriend got drop kicked here like a bastard stepchild but this whole Neramani thing will always be a problem. They aren't even human!" Cecelia said angrily. "How dare they come here and use up all of our resources!"

There was a hush in the cabin and then Kitty spoke evenly to her teammate. "You could replace Shi'ar with Black or Jew or homosexual or mutant there, Spike."

"And suddenly cause I'm brown I can't access racism and prejudice like every other human being? Bluntly, I'm afraid of white folks insanity and on top of that we now have interstellar white folk? You think that shit ain't gonna hit the fan quick, fast and messy?" Spike chuckled darkly.

"They are our friends," Sunspot pointed out.

"Not the last time I met them," Spike grumbled. "Oh, wait, you weren't there when they were shooting at us."

John interrupted with a firm clearing of his throat. "Kitty, I can flux the ship's shields to allow us to pass through too but I can't guarantee we'll be able to get back out. It constantly remodulates it's integral frequency to allow harmless energy, like sunlight in but repels dangerous energies. I can get us through."

"So it's a one way trip if we don't have permission?" Kitty said aloud and he nodded. "There are so many ships and satellites watching Neramani, rumors that the SHIELD hellicarrier is cloaked somewhere nearby as protection that they probably haven't picked up Blackguard yet. I'm worried that when they make their move, Sabine's powers won't allow him to imitate you any further, John and it will cost him his life."

"Kitty, this is crossing into an international incident. Do we have the authority to get involved in this?" Cecelia asked. "Neramani has requested that all visits be formal in nature but Blackguard's attack has got to be sponsored by some world government."

"I agree, Spike," Sunspot said. "But if we just float up here and don't try to prevent whatever's his goals are, then we'll be at fault. And aren't the X-Men suppose to be personally responsible to Neramani in the event of just such an emergency?"

There was silence and then Kitty nodded. "Peter, plot us a course through their shield on full cloak and hold a stabilized position so we can see where Blackguard is likely to come through. We might have to help Sabine get Blackguard through. Let's try and stay close enough to open a space through the portal when they try to come through."

"That won't be a problem," Peter said and with a casual thought, the Aerie changed course and dipped down towards the shield and Blackguard's ship. Peter's eyebrows rose in surprise. "I'm picking up odd readings. The mass of Blackguard's ship isn't what it should be. It's too small. But there's a lot of photon energy though-a hologram that's not a ship at all! It looks like it's on an energy extensionenergy leash from something higher in the atmosphere! I'm running a full scan, linking into world satellites and I'm getting another image!""

Kitty leaned forward to look out the cockpit window just as electricity raced through the air around her. She whirled around in time to see John erupting with energy and her teammates in varying stages of agony. She had instantly gone out of phase so while she could feel light shocks from the erupting energy, she wasn't in pain.

"Now!" John screamed to no one and a moment later the proximity alarms went off and a tremendous thud slammed on to the top of the Aerie. Kitty crouched down, the Aerie ceiling deeply dented in some places but more importantly, she noticed on the monitors that a large ship had slammed down on top of them and was using it's thrust to push down towards Neramani's field. They were hurtling through the force field and now towards the continent miles below at close to a thousand miles per hour.

"We needed two things to get through," John said in a twisted, husky voice, energy rippling from him, crippling the X-Men. "This ship and this mutant, John!"

"Who are you?" Kitty demanded.

"Oh, that's right we never met. But your people know me. Especially Storm and Polaris. I am Malice!" the being possessing John cackled and laughed hysterically. Kitty watched in mute horror as a ghostly image of a feminine face appeared on John's and his shirt flew open revealing the tell tale cameo collar of the mutant possessor. "The New Marauders have come to take Neramani!"

**Brooklyn, New York:**

Northstar sailed through a dozen streets in less than a minute then returned to a rooftop where M and Sunspot were waiting.

"Still no sign of Paulie nor his mutant goomba friends?" M asked, peevishly.

"No. It seems that whatever that illusionist transsexual is using is blocking her--­his---their teammate's presences as well," Northstar reported angrily.

A few feet away a swirl of mist appeared and Iceman coalesced. "I've been moving through as much moisture as possible I could throughout the neighborhood. Nothing so far though I did overhear a lot of rumors about the mutants making a move to take over the major crime families."

"Paulie shut off his comm link and I think he's found a way to create a psi shield with his bracelets or the psi may' be blanketing me on purpose to block out our finding him before they do," M observed in disgust, looking out over the buildings and then the people milling below. "What would they want the swaggering buffoon for? They didn't know about the bracelets he's stolen to have viable powers. Is his invulnerability mutation enough to make him so valuable to them?"

"No, I would say that we're on the brink of an all out war with the crime families and Paulie once tried to take them allover when he was first recruited into the X-Men," Northstar explained.

"Dear God. You realize this is going to sound insane but I think they were trying to recruit Paulie. I think Paulie got offered what he's always wanted!" M gasped.

"To head the New York crime families?" Iceman gasped. "That little bastard!"

"Would Paulie betray us---himself to be a crime lord?" Northstar sighed. "Just when we thought he was someone we could just eventually hope would walk upright in form and thought."

**China, Somewhere:**

Nemesis tumbled out of a stepping disc, her body still wracked with pain from her tortures but she felt as if she had succeeded in something greater than survival. She hadn't expected to confront someone who knew the possibilities she possessed for a few years yet but caught unaware and injured she'd triumphed. For all of her travels through the world and beyond, she was still relatively young. Young to the violence and survival

instincts she was learning to mirror from the identity of the true Nemesis. Perhaps there was hope for her after all.

A shadow fell across her and she looked up into the visage of the flaming man. "You heard me?" she whispered in awe.

"Once you were outside of his wards, I was able to track you again. I was extremely worried about you, my dear."

"We don't have much time if humans like the Mandarin are beginning to sense a shift in the Nexus."

"Yes, you must make your way back to Sanctuary. The film between Here and There is becoming ever thinner. I will arrive soon. Prepare them. Prepare her for her mission. She mustn't be endangered by these trivial missions the X-Men embark upon, she has a world to save."

"And Xavier?"

"He senses the time has come, he has put the pieces into play and will approach her for a mission of the utmost importance, a mission that will take her away from all she knows and holds dear."

"Good luck, Joshua," Nemesis whispered as she took off her mask and wrapped her body in her cloak. It was a late at night, she would walk awhile, find shelter for the rest of the evening then call her teammates. Hell was coming. 


	22. Allegiances Pt 3

X-Men: Sanctuary

Issue # 22

By Kyle Phoenix

Allegiances Pt. 3

Madrid, Spain:

Warren groaned and then snapped up in bed, his body tightened with pain. For a moment he smelled all the blood around him and almost panicked until he realized it was Deathbird's impressions, not his. She stood silently in the comer, wrapped in a dark coat and scarf but he could feel the readiness for combat in her. She was always poised to kill and she was sensing something from him specifically, something that both amused and frightened her. It was weird to get psi impressions from a former enemy; he could feel her seeing him as both weak and dangerous at the same time. Her thoughts beating like a darting bird but to him, his thoughts similar, a kinship that brought disgust.

"Took you long enough to heal, mutant. But heal you have," she smiled and nodded at Johanna who was playing cards with Ng at the other end of the large hospital suite. "You have delayed our mission here in Spain."

"What happened?" Warren asked wearily.

"You got violently ill in the aircar, began vomiting and bleeding so instead of going to the site of the IRC burglaries, we stopped here at the hospital. You've been unconscious for close to six hours," Johanna answered.

"Dani and Carlos? Have they returned yet?"

"Still gone. Somewhere else, 1 suspect as 1 can't feel them in the rapport,"

Cal said calmly but he could feel a slight concern from her. She was worried or felt the same psi closeness to them that he did; it was a little upsetting to be without them.

"We've tracked Fenris final destination of electronics to Japan. They have an exchange freighter off the coast here, hidden on an oil tanker according to satellite telemetry and Deathbird's tracking. We need to move on this before they take off, Warren. Can you operate?" Johanna said calmly from the other side of the suite. "Do we follow them now?"

"He isn't ready," Cal said then moved closer to the bed, sniffing him deeply. "Your spilled blood has shown me things about you that you don't know about."

"Get away from me!" Warren grunted and swatted a hand at her. She snatched it with blinding speed out of midair and yanked him out of bed then put a javelin to his throat. "You stink of _them_ from the inside. The cellular level."

"Them?" Warren grunted grabbed her by the throat.

"Is there a problem?" Ng said, standing slowly his right arm metamorphing

into a greenish muscled arm with long talons. Frenzy tensed as well, not sure what exactly was going on, there were so many permutations to everyone's relationships. But other than people telling her how evil Deathbird could be so far she'd only had the woman fight by her side. Was she reverting to old ways? How did you fight someone who had been cool so far?

Cal laughed then drove the tip of her javelin into Warren's jugular and sent a shock through it. Johanna was on her feet and running towards them both until she saw Warren fly back over the bed, writhing, a ripping sound under his cloth bed dress. His hands spasmed into the air violently, his fingernails cracking and ripping through his fingertips. His forearms began to roll, the flesh seemingly liquid until it hardened into flat pink scales. With a twist he fell onto his stomach and thin, insect like wings started sprouting from his back, almost as long and wide as his legs. First one pair from each shoulder blade and then two more sets from his lower back. His skin on his arms and legs began to darken, scales forming and talons coming out of his fingers. Deathbird grabbed him by the shoulder and Warren turned, razor sharp teeth elongating from his mouth to nearly half a foot in length, snarling at her, his fingers almost completely claws poised to slash her.

"Holy shit!" Johanna gulped as she came to a skidding halt several feet from his bed. "You're a Brood. You're infected!"

Cal hopped onto Warren's back and put him into a headlock while whispering into his ear. Her words in an alien language coupled with mental pressings calming his first transformation, stilling the bloodlust that his new form brought. Slowly his body relaxed and shifted back to human, clear insectoid wings retracting into his back, the flesh enveloping them as if it was the most natural thing possible.

"My God! I'm a Brood!" Warren gasped, his body aching from such a rapid transformation. He was soaked in mucus and some sort of greenish, red bile. Blood? He could sense so much more now. And the room felt horribly cold to him. Was he cold blooded too now? Like a reptile?

"No," Cal chuckled. "Not a full Brood. A metamorph impersonating what your cells tasted. Your malleable mutant DNA has taken on some of theirs. Probably blood from a fight or a bite. It's like a ghost on his blood, I wasn't able to pick it up until now. You need to learn to control it, Warren. You can fly again."

Warren pulled his way free of her and scampered to a far comer, staring in terror at his hands as they all watched him. "We have to get to the others. Amara and Shan. Now!" Warren pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, trying not to scream because he could feel strength under his skin and also hunger, hunger to kill, to eat go even further. Part of him saw his teammates as sacks of flesh to propagate with. There was apart that Cal couldn't sense, that he blocked from their psi rapport, that he couldn't help but see himself. Ghost or not, he was Brood in body.

By God, he wanted desperately to infect them all!

**Sanctuary:**

The first sensation was a taste of mint in his mouth. Then blinding lights from above. The lights didn't so much disturb him as the taste of mint did. He hadn't tasted anything in quite some time as he had no face. Jono sat up abruptly in the Medical Center and Cecelia smiled at him. A rare smile as she was often frowning and upset at

one thing or another.

"I'm alive," Jon rasped.

Cecelia rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "And not much brighter since I saw you

last. "

"The Brood? The Shi'ar?" he asked, looking around and realizing where he was. Back on Earth. "The San Madre people?"

"Dead. Saved and some banished to Earth. Safe and integrated into Sanctuary. In that order. You might notice that you have a face. I understand that the Shi'ar did some reconstructive work. Take a look," she handed him a small mirror and he took it with a

trembling hand. Sure enough his lower face and chest has been restored.

"My God!" he gasped.

"Be careful, Jon. It's something to do with the neck carapace you're wearing.

Over time you'll learn how to not blow your head off and use your powers. Until then I want you to keep it on and avoid sending out those psi plasmoid bursties you do. You might destroy it."

"I will. 1 will," Jon assured then looked over at the other occupied bed. Kurt was sitting up grinning at him, Jessica Drew standing at the foot of both of their beds, staring intently. For a brief second Jon got an empathic flash of concern---fear---a sense of

threat and urgencyfrom her about them then she caught his eye and slammed down

her psi shields. At first he was suspicious then Jon remembered how before her superheroing days, she'd been deeply steeped in espionage agencies. It was natural, he'd found, when around psis for former agents to close their thoughts off. More by reflex than anything else.

"It seems we were misplaced for some time in the conflagrating battle," Kurt grinned, fangs gleaming but eyes bright with joy at being home again. Jon found that his empathic senses were much stronger than normal, but his telepathic speech seemed somehow muted or dulled. He wanted to push it but there was a fuzziness around his telepathy, perhaps that was the carapace?

"I need the two of you back on active duty within the next twenty four hours. I've uploaded mission statuses to your room comms. There have been a few occurrences you'll need to be abreast of. Until the next team review in one month, the two of you are needed here to manage mutant student arrivals as well as Sanctuary security. It may not sound glamorous but once you read the last few weeks of activity, you'll see that I need experienced, seasoned X-Men by my side ASAP. I'll see you two tomorrow morning at the Eastern landing platform for the orientation of the first Institute arrivals. Welcome back, gentleman," with that clipped speech Jessica turned and headed out the door, IT appearing next to her as the next phase of base management began between the two of them.

"It's been rough on her keeping all the pieces together. Don't mind her attitude, she's got a lot of weight on her shoulders managing one of the biggest possible terrorist targets on Earth," Cecelia explained as she went back to her desk and checked the schematics for a fully operational medical center that would have to be up and running in a few days. Kitty has a team running down some mutant hunters in Melbourne, I think it is, and Warren's squad is in Europe about to tangle with the Hellfire Club again or some vampires or something. It's been busy as hell getting the whole facility ready to receive an estimated one hundred thousand mutants over the next year."

"A hundred thousand!" Kurt was surprised.

"Yup. It seems Xavier has had this concept in mind for years and a laundry list of

folks ready to participate. We'll be the next Genosha in under three years by conservative estimates. A small portion are students, the rest are the infrastructure of a city, of a nation. Welcome to Mutant City 101."

"Why be conservative?" Alex smiled brightly as he strolled in. "Sanctuary was constructed to bridge the gap between human and mutant civilization in a very realistic way. I just came in to say hi to two of our returning heroes. We've had a few injuries but the team is raring and ready to go."

"There's no one here," Cecelia pointed out. "There is no here raring to go anywhere. Even the Juggernaut was called back to the Institute in New York. There was

a lot of shit in New York that you guys missed. A lot of people died there. The news says the estimate is close to two hundred and fifty thousand missing. Check the mission files, it was bad."

"Yes, it was. Very bad. Ah. Well, carry on then," Alex nodded and left a

holographic image of IT's floating head appearing next to him as he left.

"Does everyone get a little head when they leave a room?" Kurt asked.

"Don't look at me, I'm not giving out head," Cecelia grinned.

"I have a pretty big head," Jon observed in the handheld mirror.

"I do hope we're all talking about the same thing," Kurt snickered.

**Madrid, Spain:**

They were watching him. He could feel their eyes on him. The intensity of their stares because of what he had become. What he was.

Warren kept his head low into his chest, sunk into the back of the limousine that drove his small squad onto the grounds of the Hellfire Estate. Johanna, Cal'syee and Ng sat around him, silent but he could feel their scrutiny. To confront the Brood was one thing, to be impregnated, another but to actually have one in their midst, as their leader, was something beyond the strength of loyalty to control. Cal's thoughts touched his lightly, she was so deeply bemused that he couldn't help but let a grin slip from his mask of anger and self-pity. It was funny, in a dark way. For years he'd simply had wings---­no super strength, no claws, no energy beams from his hands or eyes, no interstellar entity seeking to co-habit his being and threaten a world. No, he'd just been able to fly. Extraordinary by human standards but by mutant standards, flashy, perhaps even beautiful to behold, but dangerous like a pissed off butterfly.

Now, just beneath his skin he felt a slight tingling, a sense of his body's ability to change, to alter it's most basic DNA. It was something he should've celebrated, like when he'd discovered his healing blood but instead he felt like a mutant within mutants. While he wasn't the host of a Brood, he was in a way _a _Brood. What did that mean? Was he simply patterning himself after them unconsciously or was he an offshoot of the vile conquerors, ready to savage his friends and family when they were unsuspecting.

A flash of a pitchfork and a holographic image of a major domo appeared in the

limo, less than a foot high.

"Welcome, Mr. Worthington," he said in a clipped English accent. "I am Rutherford and you and your guests will be in the Mia Villa. The Grand Ball will be held

promptly at midnight. Your attire has already been provided."

"Where is the Red Queen?" Warren asked.

"She and her court await you in the Mia Villa."

"Court?" Cal asked. "Does he mean the other X-Men?"

"I don't think so," Johanna sighed as they pulled up to an opulent villa, almost a

mansion to itself and found it surrounded by dozens of figures in red robes. There were several fabric tents constructed around the perimeter of the house, the blinds and curtains

all shut, giving the villa a rather darkened appearance even midday.

"Can you smell it?" Cal hissed at Warren.

"Yes," he had noticed that his senses were heightened by a factor often, there was

a slight stench of rot, of decaying flesh around the whole villa and he could only hear a

handful of heartbeats within the villa. The dozens milling about outsidewere dead.

"Vampires?" Johanna surmised,

A psi infinity symbol appeared inside the limousine and Raphael spoke to his

friends calmly. _Don't be alarmed, they are under our control. It was the only way to stop the carnage._

"And when did he become telepathic?' Cal growled, slipping her javelins from her jacket sleeves. The four of them carefully walked past a dozen vampires, one or two baring elongated fangs at them mockingly, until they were inside. Raphael stood by the door, in a X-Man training uniform.

"The vampires are all on a telepathic tether. They will not harm anyone," Raphael assured.

"And when did your abilities advance so far?" Warren asked warily, his every

sense was screaming at him to change, to become Brood, to be ready to defend himself.

"Lady Amara utilized Hellfire Club means," Raphael explained calmly.

"Jo, Ng, Cal---kill anything or anyone in this house that gets within five feet of

you", Warren ordered coldly, staring at Raphael purposefully. Raphael nodded politely

and took a full step back. The group continued in silence to the living room where Amara sat on a chaise lounge, her acolytes, Misery and the other X-Men nearby.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Warren demanded. "You were to kill those vampires and that!" he spat, pointing at Misery who registered no body warmth or heartbeat to his senses.

"It was a stalemate, Warren. We killed close to two thirds of their legion but they were poised to spill into the streets of Paris, into hospitals, orphanages. It would've become too bloody. I made an executive decision," Amara offered, having practiced her

answer a thousand times.

"Who the fuck do you think you are!" Warren bellowed.

"Well, for one, I'm completely human," Amara offered. "Can you say the same?

At least I keep the enemy out of my DNA."

Warren was stunned into silence.

"You scanned him?" Jo snapped at Raphael.

"You sniffed us," Raphael answered.

"How many? The dead plus those three?" Cal asked of Amara.

"Over a hundred. After the Grand Ball, we'll all move to Sanctuary, where

they'll be under constant surveillance and out of harms way," Amara smiled.

"Near the folks from San Madre? What will keep them safe?" Jo demanded. "The same damn defense system that protects the mutants there from a Sentinel

holocaust like Genosha," Amara stood up, her eyes flashing with flame and the villa trembling slightly. "I am the Red Queen of the Imperial Court of the Hellfire Club, I have made a decision. And you, Warren, Brood bitch that you are, have to decide if this is where you wish to leave me and my court or are we better suited on your side."

"You guys need to chill. We're all on the same side here!" Shan said coolly as Tran hovered behind her in astral form.

"My sister is right, X-Men. This allegiance isunusual to say the least but

Misery and her minions have done nothing untoward since the truce. And not all of them were willing subjects to vampirism. We've discovered that at some point Misery's hold was mutant in nature. Her power of subjugation simply manifested itself in a manner of her imagination, not of damnation."

All eyes turned to Misery, who stood stock still in the shadows of the room. "What can I say?" she laughed, her voice light and yet smoky, like a blues singer. "I was always a fan of Boris Karloff and Bram Stoker."

**Brooklyn, New York:**

Northstar sailed through a dozen streets in less than a minute then returned to a

rooftop where M and Sunspot were waiting.

"Still no sign of Paulie nor his mutant goomba friends?" M asked, peevishly.

"No. It seems that whatever that illusionist transsexual is using is blocking her--

his---their teammate's presences as well," Northstar reported angrily.

A few feet away a swirl of mist appeared and Iceman coalesced. "I've been moving through as much moisture as possible I could throughout the neighborhood.

Nothing so far though I did overhear a lot of rumors about the mutants making a move to take over the major crime families."

"Paulie shut off his comm link and I think he's found a way to create a psi shield with his bracelets or the psi may' be blanketing me on purpose to block out our finding him before they do," M observed in disgust, looking out over the buildings and then the people milling below. "What would they want the swaggering buffoon for? They didn't know about the bracelets he's stolen to have viable powers. Is his invulnerability mutation enough to make him so valuable to them?"

"No, I would say that we're on the brink of an all out war with the crime families and Paulie once tried to take them allover when he was first recruited into the X-Men," Northstar explained.

"Dear God. You realize this is going to sound insane but I think they were trying to recruit Paulie. I think Paulie got offered what he's always wanted!" M gasped.

"To head the New York crime families?" Iceman gasped. "That little bastard!"

"Would Paulie betray us---himself to be a crime lord?" Northstar sighed. "Just when we thought he was someone we could just eventually hope would walk upright in form and thought."


	23. Now and Forever Pt 1

**X-Men: Sanctuary**

**#23**

**by Kyle Phoenix**

_Note: The Hellfire Annual Ball Occurs in X-Men: Annual # 1 _

_(After the drama at the Ball the X-Men squads, Misery, her league of vampires and Emma Frost return to Sanctuary.)_

**Sanctuary, Australia:**

Jessica had never seen so many people in such a small space before. Thousands of mutants were flooding from Gateway's jaunt portals from several transport points all over the world. Only mutants could travel in such a unique fashion. It was truly amazing to see people hurrying over to the assignment areas and getting set up about housing and class schedules as well as duties. Between the X Staff and IT's hundreds of interactive holograms every person was accounted for and being helped. Quite a few of them were soaring through the air, all of the Sanctuary San Madre administrative and police force were out in their X uniforms, helping to situate people. It was truly like watching a small town become a city. Off in the distance she could see the dormitories, close to forty of them, winking on lights. With a gander down at her handheld unit she could see people spreading out and exploring the town, IT keeping track of them with their newly implanted comm links. The implantation of the comm links had been a slight sticking point with a few of the mutants but the Shi'ar technology allowed the miniature comm links to be inhaled quickly and harmlessly. With riots at the Institute in the past, Genosha and a dozen other incidents, particularly the fact that they were out in the middle of nowhere, they needed to be able to keep track of everyone as best as possible.

She liked the way people were already playing around the dormitory pools as well as the man made lake Juggernaut had created with the help of engineers in a month's time. She had a good feeling about the future of Sanctuary. There were already building crews being organized in the northwest area of the town to build forty more dormitories as well as two hundred homes being built to the south of the town for mutants that had families. A flashing pulse on her pad showed one of the airships returning, Warren's team.

Jessica felt a rising sense of cautious joy, at least there would be a task force on site. As tight as she'd structured their defenses, X-Men were still X-Men and had a way of keeping their homes safe. Well reasonably enough.

"Jessica?" Jon said over the comm link. "I'm down at the control center, Archangel's team is disembarking and they have guests. Lots of guests. You might

want to get down here."

"On my way," Jessica sighed. Couldn't just have an easy day, could she?

"Vampires? Are you shitting me?" Jessica sighed as she stood outside of the airship. It had been stripped of all non-essential equipment to transport close to a hundred vampires. The older Judi Dench look-alike was their leader and stood quietly behind the other X-Men in the catacombs where the ships were stored after landing. She seemed to be beaming at the hundred foot high ceilings.

"I'm going to like it here," Misery grinned, opened her arms and soared upwards. "I think she likes it," Warren sighed. Magma, Karma, Frenzy, Deathbird, a

floating astral Tran, Akasa, half a dozen cyborg Hellfire guards and half a dozen other Hellfire minions of Magma's in crimson stood watching the woman fly. Even IT's holographic head looked up. Jon and Kurt stood next to Jessica in their stylized black uniforms and Jessica for a moment couldn't tell the difference between the good and bad guys.

"They are mine," Magma explained. "They no longer hunt humans nor feed on them."

"Or what?" Kurt asked doubtfully.

"Or they die," Magma shrugged.

"Aren't they already dead? That's not quite the threat it seems on the surface," Jon said.

"Darlings!" Emma Frost slowly descended out of the airship, in a sleek white dress, sipping from a champagne glass. "How exciting is this day! I'm here, the X-Men have returned (more or less), we have guests, anddddddddddddd I'm here!"

"Emma, are you drunk?" Jessica asked in disbelief.

"The annual ball was amazing, Ms. Drew, you must come as my personal guest next year! So, I see you've met our new additions?" Emma grinned as the vampires filed out slowly behind her. "Jessica dear, I know you have security concerns. I purposefully thought you'd be perfect for the job of Head of Operations here because of that streak of paranoia you possess. I support that feeling, Jessica dear, I do. Which is why I've spent the past two days delving deep into the minds of all the vampires here implanting some of the most complex psi workings I would like to think any omega level telepath such as myself has ever wrought."

"Mental control?" Kurt asked skeptically.

"Even better, mein freund," Emma smiled giddily and with a flash three vampires exploded into dust.

"Noooo!" Misery shrieked and soared down, landing in front of Emma, her hands forming talons.

"Down, Momma Bitch," Emma grinned, her eyes flashing with psionic energy. "I can make you go poof just as easily. That was merely an example so none of you forget that I've psi bonded them to not only several of the psis here but also to the IT system which I've integrated with Cerebra II down here. Down under, down here. I think I made a pun or the beginnings of a rap song," Emma chuckled. "I've taught the way to vaporize vampires to Jon already. He was one of my second wave of students, you know?" Emma smiled.

Then her face went stem.

"Misery, Amara is but a child who is discovering the edge in her heart. I use people to sharpen my edge on with a ferocity and cleverness that even in your advanced age you can't expect to understand. You harm one of my mutants, and I am including the fourteen thousand minds I can now feel in Sanctuary and 1 won't kill you. I'll separate you from you body piece by piece until you're but a writhing head and torso, shrieking in deaf mute blindness for me to finally crush. And, dear Misery, you would be surprised at how many of those kinds of headed torsos I have littered around the world, waiting for me to kill them. Now, I'm going upstairs to greet my new class of students."

Emma linked her arm through Kurt Wagner's. "Good to see you back, darling, show me the way."

Jessica watched her leave and couldn't help but smile. "I feel better now."

"Let's give them run of some of the farthest out catacombs to act as a perimeter defense, in fact we should create a ring around the town underground, place them as sentries," Warren explained calmly. He seemed almost numb as he held up his data pad and IT quickly downloaded all of his mission notes. "I'll be in my loft. I'd like to be alone for awhile."

"He's discovered that he's an adaptable metamorph," Jo explained as Warren left the hangar. "Ummmmm his first transformation was into a half Brood. Seems he mimics. He's not taking it well."

"Ah," Jessica nodded. "And this Hellfire entourage?"

"My newest court. We'll have a house somewhere on the outskirts near one of the valley's. They, like the vampires are my responsibility and will be nothing but aid to this place. Anything else and they die at my hands."

"Nifty," Jessica nodded again as Magma and her entourage left.

"This is Ng," Karma said of the small Asian man. "He's Carlos's manservant and a Skrull."

"Of course he is," Jessica nodded a third time. "I suppose that Dani and Carlos are still missing?"

"They live. 1 sense they are alive," Deathbird said baring razor sharp teeth and taking to the air, she followed the track lights back down the tunnel to the entrance way and the small aerie home she had on a nearby bluff.

"Well, that's comforting," Jessica nodded. "IT, arrange staff to see to our new guests and put them through appropriate security channels, clearances, comm link

and pad possession. I'll be in my room setting a timer for how long this whole situation takes to completely explode and become the ruin of us all."

"Yes, Ms. Drew," IT answered.

**Sanctuary:**

Warren stood on the deck of the roof of his bungalow watching thy new arrivals mill about throughout the town. It was amazing to see so many mutants, thousands moving freely. He knew that Jessica had worked hard on the security of the town, Genosha being such a forefront in all of their minds. But to see hundreds of small houses and buildings built by Worthington, Frost Industries and X Corp made him feel like the X-Men had accomplished something in the past few months. He looked down at his hands and thought hard and the scales began to appear slowly at first and then they were almost reptilian. First healing blood and now this. When Cecelia got back he would approach her about the possibility of how to incorporate new cell samples into his system under controlled circumstances. With a bit of focus he allowed the Brood wings to rip from his skin, almost no pain at all, a second layer of some sort that he seemed to have over his normal epidermis.

He felt them beat faster and faster and then he shot up into the sky, the thrill of flight returned to him. He couldn't help but rejoice at this turn of events, even if it came from such a deadly enemy. There was a tickling at the back of his neck and then an image of Danielle appeared in front of him.

"Warren! I finally got through to you!" She gasped with a big bright smile. "Dani!" he said in joy. "How?"

"Carlos and I figured since I can project illusions into the minds of others, including their greatest desire I could project to you and then through you. A psionic feat that I've pulled off with his help. We figure too that Gateway may not be able to bring us back to you but it could bring you to us," she explained calmly.

"Dani, but then we'd be trapped with you there, right?"

"Right. Unless you used someone from there to link you to here through

Gateway. Someone he could maintain a lock on."

"Marat," Warren realized.

"Yes. Unfortunately, within him he possesses all of the power from both the

Beast and within himself to transverse to this dimension and more importantly to hone in on Carlos and I."

"We can be back in Europe and on Gateway's summit in less than an hour," Warren promised.

"We'll have you back in no time."

"Warren, thank you and I love you," Dani smiled then faded away as he suddenly changed direction and headed towards the main building to assemble his team.

"We have his cooperation. He'll bring Marat to their base and then we'll storm their dimension," the Enchantress said excitedly, running her hands through her golden locks, as she stood up from her scrying pool on the floor of her Asgardian castle. Her hand flashed with eldritch energy and an image of Carlos and Dam walking through

forest appeared. "Dear little mutant Valkyrie, did you think you could cross into my lands and not have me notice you. We have a blood debt that must be paid and without the protection of your husband, I have free reign to pluck the babe from you."

She walked out to the balcony of her castle and looked down at a thousand armored trolls. "Prepare yourselves, soldiers, human blood shall be your meal by sunrise."

**Earth:**

Marat opened his eyes as a clawed hand gripped his throat.

"Back already, mutants?" he asked Archangel and Deathbird.

"We will kill you. Cooperate and you go free," Warren threatened, his arm fully mutated into a reptilian arm with long talons instead of fingers.

"You're going to use me to rescue Danielle? Ironic, no?" Marat teased. "Don't fret, the Beast is dormant within me. For now."

Archangel checked Marat's power nullifying manacles and psi scrambling headband. "Prisoner is secure. Transport back," with that they pushed him backwards into one of Gateway's portals and vanished.

**Sanctuary:**

Gateway actually groaned for a moment and then began swinging his bola even more intensely as Deathbird held a shackled Marat by the throat, energy wisps poring from his body. Archangel stood close by, a hand held controller pointed directly at the arm and leg shackles to activate thousands of volts of electricity and several sedatives should the muscular man make any sudden moves. But he seemed strangely sedate as he watched the portal slowly form to Asgaard and through it came deeper and deeper impressions of Psyche and Carlos. Gateway grunted something unintelligible and the portal became steady and a moment later Psyche and Carlos, clad in tanned leather stepped through.

Psyche looked up and grinned. "Wow. That was pretty impressive. How did you know--- ?"

"You told us," Warren said as he rushed over and hugged her. There was a moment of confusion between them as the psionic rapport re-integrated in full strength and then the realization that something didn't click. Before Warren could delve into what the misconnection was there was a loud roaring sound behind them and a mass of war trolls began leaping from the portal, brandishing swords.

"Back!" Carlos roared, his hands forming sigils in the air, mystical shields slamming into the trolls, forcing them back to Asgard. There was a second thunderous roar and mystical energy began battering his shields and then like shattering porcelain the circular shields crumbled and the Enchantress stepped through, clad in emerald armor.

"Migard," she grinned. "Thank you for all your help, I shall make this my first beach head on your plane."

"Never!" Marat roared and dove at the witch, his hands ripping his electronic bindings to bits. He grasped her throat and taking advantage of her shock, put his mouth on hers then cast her to the ground and dove through the portal. There was a bright flash and the portal suddenly closed, slicing trolls halfway through in half and leaving the Enchantress, alone on the butte staring mutely at the X-Men.

Psyche reacted first, a psi arrow flying from her bow, impaling the sorceress who shrieked, her hands rising and a mystical bolt blasting the X-Men back. With a wave of her hand, the winds themselves roared down and swept them all off of the butte. Archangel and Deathbird, plucked their three teammates out of the sky as the winds grew in ferocity and intensity, eventually snatching the Enchantress into the night sky.

"Someone had best explain this to me quickly! Came the telepathic roar of Emma Frost, accompanied by an astral projection of her in a white silk robe standing in her bedroom. The fact that the astral image was nearly thirty feet high made her anger all the more impressive.

"We got back Dani and Carlos," Archangel explained quickly.

_Happy happy, joy joy_, Emma sneered And you also released Marat back to god knows where indirectly and the Enchantress onto Earth directly. The two of them aren't worth such an exchange.

"Ouch," Carlos chuckled.

_I'll see the four of you in the Situations Room in five minutes_, Emma ordered.

Jessica Drew walked out of the impromptu meeting to welcome back Carlos and Dani, both happy and concerned. The team was building back up nicely, her idea of always having a squad on hand to supplement her security was well in hand but Hellfire Club members, vampires plus all of the new mutants in town made her wonder if perhaps the combination could be too volatile.

She glanced to the far edge of the town, there was something just out of the corner of her eye that had caught her attention.

"IT", she called and the holographic head appeared next to her. "Spectral projection of Sector Nine Twelve."

A detailed aerial map view of Sanctuary appeared in front of her, satellites from above and a hundred cameras throughout the town focusing on the sector to give her a crisp 3-D enhanced view. There was something moving fast close to the ground.

"Speed?" Jessica demanded of IT.

"Less than five hundred mph but the object is also moving in and out of phase,"

IT reported. "I can neither calculate exact speed nor ultimate trajectory. And I am only hypothesizing that it is one being."

"We have a situation, Emma," Jessica said over her comm link. "IT, locate the Enchantress, we can't allow her to get away."

Emma's astral image appeared.

"You look haggard, old girl," Jessica grinned at the drawn visage.

"I'm cursing out X-Men in four languages and I'm picking up out of phase thoughts. Some gibberish about Winch. The out of phase man is looking for a mutant named Winch. I'm alerting a squad to you while trying to locate this Winch person."

"What's that shrill sound?" Jessica asked looking up and saw a small comet heading for the town.

"Oh, dear," Emma muttered, glancing up even though she wasn't in the room physically. She looked through the ceiling with her telepathy and sighed. "Jessica, if I were you, I would move quickly, seems we're under attack."

Jessica dove out of her window, somersaulting onto the ground below as the object smashed through the roof of the building she'd been in. Immediately IT was in security protocol mode, locking down the students and residents, activating and deploying the X Squad civilian police force to give the town a wide berth. There were also dozens of secure caverns networked under all the buildings that effectively became fallout shelters. Within three minutes, Jessica had designed a system that put close to ten thousand people into absolute safely and deployed close to one thousand Sanctuary security guards to prepare for any assault.

Jessica stood up slowly, brushing dirt off of her uniform, watching the rubble of one of her above ground offices slowly move aside. Tons at a time. A serious threat had dropped in. The other entities flight path made sense nowhe was to focus all the

scanners onto him while this bomb of a being was dropped from at least three? Maybe four miles up to avoid the detection web Jessica had at a height of one mile. She made a mental note to pester Alex to get airspace rights over all of Australia lifted from one mile to five.

"Sorry, about that," a calm feminine voice said as she calmly emerged from the wreckage of the building. "Ace threw me at this joint once we got a lock onto it. 1 was hoping to hit the ground. That telepathic distortion field makes specific landings difficult."

"Poor baby," Jessica muttered, hands beginning to sizzle with bio-electrical energy. "I take it you're here for Winch."

"You know...?" the woman was mildly surprised. She stood close to 6'4, with impressive brawn and a calm smile. "I'm Lil. Diamond Lil in another time and place. But since the blender that was Alpha Flight, I'm with a squad of bounty hunters. You're harboring a fugitive here. The US government wants him back."

Jessica wasn't fazed in the least. "One, there are channels. His name is Alex Rosten. You contact him, he would expedite this. Two, part of our charter here legally absolves us from all citizenship and extradition laws. On Earth. That's a matter for X Corp lawyers. Three, you've done some property damage. That's a matter of course with mutants. Four, I get to kick your ass for it," Jessica leaped into the air, cart wheeling, her hands sizzling with energy sending venom bolts at Lil.

Lil backpedaled, the energy bolts burning at her flesh but doing no damage to her nervous system. Jessica catapulted over her and scampered up the side of the building and inside, immediately opening her comm link to IT.

"You got that, IT?" Jessica snapped. "All that she said? She's not alone. Full spectrum scan on the entire township. Get Alex on the legal parts."

"Yes, Ms. Drew. I am processing, contacting and working on the issue with X Corp lawyers as we speak."

"Put Sanctuary on Yellow Alert, level four. These are legal bounty hunters so I don't think innocents will get purposefully hurt but it could get messy. Alex?"

"I'm in the Situations Room with Chamber," Alex answered. "Did I mention that I was finally getting some well deserved sleep? I'm on hold for the President of the USA right now. I don't want to involve the Australian Cabinet yet. We have an Executive Stay Option order where he can put an end to all hostilities until sorting out can begin but only if he verbally implements it to the agency that sponsors the action. Diamond Lil could be helpful and tell her who is footing the bill for this."

"I'll ask," Jessica grumbled as she pulled on her X uniform of black mesh over her basic uniform bodysuit, the body armor would be necessary as well as the camouflaging and environmental compensation devices---it was freezing outside.

A fist came through the wall and grabbed her by the shoulder. She was twisted around, her shoulder being clutched to the point that her she had to grit her teeth.

"Just Winch. No long drawn out battle," Lil offered. "We of course know that there will be a little rope a dope but it doesn't have to"

"Spare me," Jessica sighed contorting her body impossibly, her legs being quadruple jointed, able to dislocate and re-insert her shoulder rotating cup without much pain, climbing onto the steel arm, her back bending impossibly both forward at the top and backward at the bottom, so that she wrapped her body first up and then around Lil's arm and back, with a hand over her eyes. "Let's try this one." She let loose with a venom blast into Lil's face and got the results she wanted. Lil shrieked and threw them both out of the building back onto the ground.

"We're here!" Archangel said over his comm link as he and Deathbird streaked towards the two women.

"Trajectory has changed on the out of phase object!" IT alerted. "Speed has increased by a factor of seven! It is a humanoid figure but I can't get a tighter resolution image due to the distortion field."

Ace came to a dead halt in front of Death bird and Archangel, a grinning man in all black and a long black trench coat with wrap around dark glasses. "I see the real world clearly."

"Ummmmm ok," Archangel shrugged.

Ace waved his hand and a concussive force of energy slammed into the two X-Men knocking them straight up. Over twenty thousand feet.

Ace turned and moved so fast that he was at Lil's side before the two X-Men had even completely left the backlash of his wave. "I'm here, Lit"

"Did I mention that I plotted my security protocols on an Extinction Level event such as Genosha," Jessica grinned and a moment later the Juggernaut came crashing down into the two bounty hunters.

Jessica backed away from the new crater and watched as the dirt cleared once again and revealed the Juggernaut standing with the two barely fazed bounty hunters. She too careful note of the fact that they didn't even seem that hurt. Of course only dropped in from five hundred feet but he still weighed a bit.

"Our Intel said you left," Lil sighed.

Ace looked up. "The mutant Gateway on some sort of pre-timed retrieval of specific X-Men."

"Or black ops bullshit X-Men style," Juggernaut grinned and punched her. She didn't even budge. "Wow."

"No, this is wow," Ace said, Lil leaning to one side as he reached over and punched Juggernaut back.

Jessica dropped into a crouch from both the sound and the concussive force then stood up a second later. "IT, where's Cain?"

"I estimate he will hit the Pacific ocean to our east in approximately forty nine seconds. "

"IT, that's close to seven hundred miles away!"

"Six hundred and seventy two to be exact. Implementing retrieval to avoid damage to human population on the coast," IT said calmly then blinked out of sight.

"We've never heard of you, Ace," Jessica said calmly to the dark clad man. He looked like a glowing movie star, perfectly chiseled features. Hair still in place. Actually he looked like the star of a trilogy of movies she'd seen awhile ago. Or maybe just a mutant fan boy gone wild?

"I hadn't heard of me until recently," Ace answered. "We just want Winch. Then we'll be on our way."

"IT, do we have any idea who they're talking about?" Jessica asked as the floating head reappeared next to her.

"Searching…….."

The ground trembled and behind Jessica erupted a fissure and slowly out of it rose Magma, Frenzy, Karma, Tran and Akasa.

"Are these the troublemakers?'" Magma asked, body dripping with molten energy. "Yes. Toast them, I have to retrieve Winch," Jessica said and walked away. "With pleasure," Magma said and let loose molten blasts.

Ace pulled his coat in front of him and Lil blocking the lava blasts and then raised them higher his hands projecting more concussive energy.

Akasa threw a dozen psi stars into the approaching wave and it dissipates "He seems to be using a sophisticated form of telekinesis but it still has a psi impression---almost like a second party. Easily dispersed with another psi attack"

"I didn't see that as a possibility," Ace said for a moment, visibly surprised, then grabbed Lil's arm and sped up and towards the dorms.

."I'll stick with them!" Tran said and soared after them.

**Dorm 14:**

Emma walked calmly through one of the furthest dormitories carefully making sure that each one was asleep thanks to her telepathic muffling. Of course there was the cursory telepathic gleaning of their thoughts for the name Winch.. She'd picked up the impression here and then it had muffled out. It was like having a word on the tip of your…tongue it didn't help that she was still slightly' intoxicated and that the. Enchantress was nowhere to be found.

Emma whirled aroundthere had been a presence behind her for a. split second, a wisp of something or someone.

"Jessica, I'm going to need one. of the bounty .hunters for a deep scan. This Winch person isn't readily apparent and 1---," Emma gasped as a hand gripped her throat from. behind. There was no mind to grab onto. .

"I'm Blindspot," the heavy voice said to her. "For obvious reasons. Now, I'm going to give you a simple nerve. pinch and then I'm going to take. Winch out of here. Agreed?"

Emma, already seeing spots, nodded. Then she held up a single finger.

"What?" Blindspot added and the hand turned to diamond along with the rest of her body and slashed through his arm, the blood splashing onto both of them.

Emma dropped to one knee and kicked back without hesitation, gleefully hearing bones break. But when she turned he was gone. She was about to revert back to human to use her telepathy but thought better of it. The blood was still splattered on her and the floor. There was no trail he hadn't moved away at super speed. Blindspot? What if that ability didn't just extend to telepathy but also eyesight. That would've explained the wisp of a thought she'd felt before he grabbed her. So he was possibly- still in the corridor with her. But he was still looking for Winch himself which gave her both an advantage and a disadvantage.

Emma stood up and moved to the wall security panel. She typed in her override code then initiated the defense system and laser turrets came out of the floor and ceiling. She keyed in another code, set to activate upon motion and stood perfectly still. There was no motion for several seconds then she calmly walked down the hallway, lasers immediately firing at her, and reflecting off of her skin.

The lasers began creating a web of blasts throughout the hallway, illuminating it and then eventually forcing a slightly silhouetted figure to dive through a doorway. Emma grinned and then ran down the hallway and dove onto the glimpse of a shadow. Upon contact, it was a solid man and then tumbled to the landing below. Emma didn't hesitate as she kicked his body solidly with all of her might, a satisfying scream of agony as he crashed into a wall.

Emma stood up and grinned at the slumped over man in his forties, with a thick white beard.

"Blindspot, I take- it?" Emma purred. "Be a dear and tell me who Winch is, would you? Telepathic rummaging is so cumbersome."

"Ms. Frost, we didn't mean to engage the X-Men. I respect what you're doing here, I even own stock in Frost Industries and X Corp. Winch, however, is using you to hide. It stands to reason that would happen with over ten thousand residents."

"Yes, it does. Asking politely would've negated all of this testosterone preening drama," Emma sighed.

"Yes, but who said Winch was our only target?" Blindspot grinned and with a wave of his hands a blast of brilliant light exploded, blinding her. There was a rumbling noise and the wall was ripped apart by Ace, who grabbed

Emma and casually tossed her over his shoulder, sending her flying into the night sky.

"Sanctuary is just that. We protect everyone here," Akasa said as he dropped out of the shadows above, psi shruiken flung from his fingertips at Blindspot as he sailed into Ace with a savage kick.

Ace backpedaled, more surprised than hurt as Akasa bounced from him and barreled into Lil. She easily grabbed his arm and swung him into a wall.

"How did he get here so fast?" Ace asked.

"Same way I did!" Juggernaut grinned as he came around a comer and punched Ace so hard, part of the dormitory floor crumbled.

"Gateway," Blindspot muttered, then threw several small explosives at the Juggernaut and slipped around him as the small distracting explosions went off.

"Where'd he go?" Juggernaut demanded, he'd been staring directly at the bounty hunter.

"Does it matter?" Ace said as he reached back through the wall and snatched the Juggernaut out into the night. Blindspot kicked in a dormitory door in time to see the last of the students being evacuated into Gateway's portals and Jessica standing with a sly grin.

"Dumbass. You should've known we've worked all this out a thousand ways

from Sunday in case of just such an attack. You'll never get this Winch person."

Blindspot grinned. "Unless this whole thing has been to get you to actually make Winch rabbit?"

"His thoughts are slippery but I get the impression he's telling the truth," Carlos said from behind him and before Blindspot could move, two psi arrows from Psyche impaled him.

"You were right, Carlos. Our psilink allowed us to overcome his psi ability to distract," Dani said, still in jeans and a t-shirt, not having had time to change back into a fresh uniform.

"Warren and Deathbird are engaging on Ace. He's the real problem," Carlos said as he touched the insensate Blindspot's head. "His thoughts are elusive even unconscious. But I'm picking up that there is a mole here in Sanctuary. Someone came with the refugees to locate Winch from the inside."

"Great," Jessica said and looked up at the floating IT. "I want Sanctuary's guards on everyone not on a squad here. All of them on lockdown and into the underground safe rooms. But severe the artery links to the main shelter."

"Done," IT answered.

"I can't get the exact image of the mole," Carlos grunted angrily. "My empathy isn't refined enough to pull anything but the emotional content from his mind. We need Emma for this."

"Or a very specific psi talent," Dani smiled and relaxed herself for a moment then dove into- Blindspot's mind. Without a desire to be subtle of specific, she snatched out everything she could find, a veritable reckless hand sifting quickly through thousands of thoughts and images.

"Wow," Jessica said, impressed as hundreds of band sized mental images flickered in and out of existence between Dani and Blindspot. Blindspot woke up violently retching and screaming and then the image of a slim girl coalesced in front of them.

"I've got him!" Carlos said, clutching Blindspot's head and forcing his mind into a fugue state. "He can't fight it anymore."

"Her name is Sylvia, she's in Dorm Nine," IT said processing the identity of the mental image against the resident records.

"Abilities?" Jessica asked, signaling Gateway on her comm link, a portal opening behind her.

"Heightened physical abilities. Though initial Cerebra scans detected possibly more," IT said as Jessica and Dani hurried through the portal and appeared outside of the underground shelter below Down Nine.

"Ma'am?" one of the six Sanctuary guards asked in puzzlement. They were stationed outside of the blast doors that protected the dormitory residents from whatever threat might be attacking the town.

"We have a rogue in there. IT, open it up," Jessica ordered. "Guys, put your truncheons on high stun." .

'Too late", Sylvia laughed as she phased through the door, a slim Hispanic girl who's entire body was covered in a grey sheen. "How do you think we bypassed so many of your perimeter security detectors. Between Blindspot and my out of phase abilities, your security is a joke. Excuse me, girls, got a Winch to secure." Sylvia dove past the two women into the cavern rock face and disappeared. Into it.

"Ok, so Shadowcat has a few more uses than I could've foreseen as homeland security," Jessica grumbled.

"I'll follow her," IT said confidently and phased through the cavern wall after the young girl.

"Beautiful," Jessica grinned. "Dani, we can follow through a service tunnel---this way!"

"I'm right behind you," Dani answered and the two women took off down a parallel hallway.

"Back off!" Ace shouted and blasted Juggernaut into a butte.

"A test! Finally!" Magma roared, riding a cresting molten wave and hurling globs of lava at Ace.

Ace raised his hands and a shimmering field caught the lava, slowing it down like rocks caught water, all momentum lost until they dropped uselessly to the ground. Ace grabbed Juggernaut and hurled him at Magma.

"Hold!" Karma skidded to a halt after a dead run and lashed out with her possession ability. "God!" she shrieked at the resistance, the power of his mind.

"Out!" Ace snapped and pushed his hand at her, sending back her mental attack until she fell onto her back.

Akasa hurled half a dozen psi shruiken at Ace's back, giving Karma enough time she re-launch a mental attack, bringing Ace to one knee.

"Just hold him still for one second!" Juggernaut roared and solidly punched Ace, causing the young man to actually impact into the ground like a small crater.

Juggernaut continued with blow after blow until finally Ace grabbed up with one hand and caught the next blow.

"Wow, that's pretty strong," Magma said impressed. "Ace, we understand that you're on a job here. It's not worth the effort to try and occupy us with this. Someone will get hurt. Most likely you. We have many, many mutants and abilities to keep launching at you. You are only one man."

"I am the One!" Ace roared and released a concussive field from his body, that lashed out at everything within a hundred feet of his body.

Magma was the first to recover, shedding her molten form and focusing on actually looking at Ace, at the power as it flowed out of him and then flowed back in. He was like a focusing lens externally but she wasn't getting a sense of much power actually within him. She focused on the earth below his feet, looked for minute flexes of the power that would show that he was the power itself but instead she felt the normal weight of a man.

"IT?" she called out over her comm link.

"Yes, Magma?" the holographic head appeared next to her, substantially smaller than the main one that appeared with Jessica at all times but she knew that to such a massive computer consciousness she had access to everything within Sanctuary.

"He's not the power, he focuses it. Is there a way to triangulate where it's coming from?" she asked.

There was a slight flickering of IT and then a full schematic of Sanctuary appeared, a series of arrows pointing to a thin invisible energy beam that lead off into the night sky.

"That looks similar to when we fought Sabine, he was powered by Meridian in much the same fashion. Emma, are you there? I think Meridian is back," Magma said over her comm link.

_I'm here_, Emma said confidently, her astral projection three stories tall appearing over the battlefield. She grabbed the energy line with one hand and psychically slammed Ace with the other. _Last time you didn't have me to deal with, Meridian but you've cost me a lot of money, time and energy. Let's see what you're made of!_ Emma roared mentally out across the line.

Out of the corner of her telepathic "eye" as it raced through the energy line seeking the source, she spotted the Enchantress in the desert, hurrying to cross it. Before she could restrain herself or shield her mind, the sorceress noticed her.

"Mind witch!" the Enchantress screamed. "Let us duel then!" The siren-esque mystic hurled mystical bolts at the astral figure, coincidentally as Ace recovered form the psionic pummeling and thrust his energy at Emma's astral form. Emma felt like she was being suddenly pulled in three different directions but she thought she had a trick up her sleeve, she thought to herself as she shot a quick command to Gateway and her body appeared next to the Enchantress. The sorceress was so surprised that she was shocked as Emma lashed out at her psionically.

Emma, however wasn't prepared for the surge of nearly limitless energy that coruscated through the Meridian line in her psychic clutches or the crushing psionic force Ace was applying to her psychic self from the physical plane. In a desperate attempt to save her mind, Emma reverted from human form to diamond form but before she could completely assume psychic possession of her own form the Enchantress grinned and struck with a mystical bolt casting her essence away from her body and forcing her body's transformation to continue.

Emma screeched, a body separated from its mind suddenly tossed up in the air and mercilessly crushed between the psi energy line she was entangled in and the battery it was feeding. The resulting explosion lit up the psychic plane for thousands of miles around, thousands of strong and weak telepaths across the Southern hemisphere hearing her disintegration.


	24. Now and Forever Pt 2

**X-Men: Sanctuary**

**Issue # 24**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

**Ace and Bace**

Sanctuary Base, Australia:

Chamber sat in the Situations Room, forty-foot screens around the high cavern walls, observing the fractured squad dealing with the bounty hunter intrusion. It hadn't gotten to a Security Level Omega---it was still at Delta and he was mainly making sure that the Sanctuary security force kept the residents safe and away from battle zones. Jessica had put together so many alternative plans and security plans that except for the excursion into the dorms, over ten thousand people were safe in reinforced underground caverns that networked throughout the entire town, below every small house and dorm building. Close to three hundred structures designated as living areas with another twenty above ground as planned stores, civic centers and public buildings were all under own were reinforced titanium walls under the wood exteriors.

Sanctuary as a shelter and a city was damn impressive.

While Chamber had reservations about being an X-Man in general and about himself in particular since his adventure in space, he was glad to be part of such an ambitious undertaking. The memories of the Shi'ar War were still fuzzy and for some reason Nemesis gave him the creeps but he felt that being back in the saddle, even if he was on glorified middle management duty, was the right thing for him to do. He had never felt so committed to anything before in his lifeperhaps it was being so close to death but he felt almost emphatic about his commitment to the X-Men now. If he wasn't such a strong psi he would've suspected his mind had been tampered with.

"Chamber? How are our guests in Sections Five and Nine doing?" Jessica asked over the comm link.

"The vampires have remained within their caverns and dorms. As has our Hellfire Club contingent. I've got forty squad members each surrounding their areas as well as complete lockdown---I've apprised them like everyone else and they are abiding by the Security Protocols," Chamber answered, his fingers dancing over the computer consoles bringing up visuals on all the residents in both sections as well as all of their comm links.

"Good. The situation isn't as bad as it may seem throughout the comm link network. I'm concerned about the Enchantress though. She hasn't teleported out so she must be on foot heading out of town. Mobilize the ATV squads and get them out there with a standing order to not engage. Once we secure the ten-mile perimeter, I want the defense screen up. If we can't locate her within the ten miles, she'll pop up outside of it."

"Understood. Should I alert Kurt to supervise?" Jessica paused then answered. "No. You go. I need Kurt moving throughout the base."

"Done. Alex is returning to the Central Room," Chamber reported as Alex came into the room followed by a hovering IT hologram.

"These bounty hunters have clearance through the CIA and we're in a pissing contest with lawyers on three continents trying to get the President of the USA to intercede and call them off," Alex explained, listening to several calls on his headset, IT flashing several video comm messages alongside him as he walked thought he great room.

"I'm into the field," Chamber said excitedly, snatching up his jacket and hoping onto one of the monorails that ran all throughout the caverns and zoomed off.

"Jessica, I'm also getting a Priority One call-from X Corp Tokyo. We have to send a squad into the field. Does anyone have Emma on their comm link?" Alex asked, looking at the digital schematic on the giant viewer screens. Her blip was gone.

"I hear you, Alex. Carlos? Dani? Warren? Ideas?" Jessica said as she and Dani hurried down a cavern tunnel to where IT was tracking the Sylvia girl had phased through.

"Priority One is serious. Warren, myself, Chamber, Kurt, Frenzy and Shan?"

Dani asked..

"Scratch Kurt. I need him here. Take a vampire or a Hellfire goon. If it's Tokyo, Magma will screw with their tectonic instability," Jessica said calmly. Her thoughts were on putting two questionable X-Men---Chamber and Kurt on the same mission---Dani obviously sensed something was wrong but let it go.

"You'll still have Carlos, Emma, Cain, Kurt, Deathbird and Akasa to clean up this mess here," Dani calculated.

"Plenty," Jessica nodded and a moment later a portal from Gateway opened behind them. "Good luck," she said as Dani hurried into the portal and vanished.

Jessica keyed in a code to a keypad and slipped inside. Sylvia was standing over a short, curly haired man, shouting at him. Jessica vaguely remembered him from the security files she'd reviewed. He was in his mid-thirties with some lower level passive mutation that didn't put him into their high watch category.

"Time to come home, Winch! We need you!" Sylvia was shouting at him.

"I quit! I quit! I quit! I want a different kind of life, Sylvia!" he retorted angrily. "You heard him," Jessica said calmly and Sylvia whipped around, her hands

crackling with energy.

"If I were here in a different way, I'd blow you away," Sylvia hissed. "This man has responsibilities elsewhere that he has lapsed on. We need him. "More than ever! You can understand when a mission could save more lives than someone's sniveling, don't you?"

"I do," Jessica admitted then added, "but if Winch here can't see the level of importance than I have to question the veracity of your "mission" and your practices of sneaking in here and doing so much damage."

"We meant no harm," Sylvia sighed. "We don't have much time. We thought we could snatch him out fast."

"Get out of my city and I'll talk to Winch. Anything less than that and we'll tussle some more and we'll win. I guarantee that."

Sylvia looked down at the young man sitting on the floor and seemed tom for several minutes then shook her head and vanished.

"Diamond Lil and Blindspot have vanished as well," IT said to Jessica. "Oddly, Ace, still unconscious, hasn't."

"Get him into power dampeners and Winch, you're with me. We have to talk. IT, confirm the integrity of the down. Have Deathbird and Juggernaut do a full sweep of the perimeter. We still have the Enchantress out there. Mobilize a squad under Carlos in five minutes. I'm making my way to the Situation Room."

"Understood, Ms. Drew."

**Tokyo, Japan:**

The X-Men appeared on the rooftop of the IRC office and standing waiting with a broad smile was Tom Calendula and Natsume Shikibu. Warren shook hands with Tom and eyed Natsume suspiciously.

"No wings?" Tom asked.

"I've evolved a bit in my powers. No prison for this thief? The Hellfire Club says that he was the one who stole Channel from Selene's bedroom."

"It was a deception," Natsume answered calmly. "We thought Channel better in our hands than villains and since you can't legally enter a residence and take a non-corporeal being into custody, I, a legal officer, did so."

"Stealing from the Hellfire Club is not a good idea," Chaxaza said calmly, her bangles and bracelets jingling lightly under her dark red cloak.

"And when did you join the X-Men?" Tom asked her. "We have a file on you a mile long, especially your arms dealing history."

"That was an isolated incident that I merelytook advantage of," she snapped back, flipping back her cloak revealing an ample décolletage from the bustier.

"Wow," Chamber sighed at her flowing red skirt and tight bodice. She flicked her eyes at him then turned back her anger to Tom.

"Would you care to explain this or should we send you back to Sanctuary?" Warren asked her.

"I have a small trust fund, my exuberance to make it more made me greedy and reckless when I was younger and I thought using my mutant abilities to use air and superheated plasma energy would make me a good enforcer in illegal deals. I paid dearly and did several years in both jail and in debt to Sebastian Shaw," she lowered her head in obvious embarrassment at her past life.

"Back to the mission at hand," Tom interrupted. "We're aware that you had a brief run in with Fenris and we have information on their intention to hit a Sentinel manufacturing base."

"A Sentinel manufacturing base?" Warren said incredulously. "And how is IRC involved in this base?"

"We subcontract out some of the technology but most importantly we provide long term overall security. It seems that the shell corporation has been compromised and Fenris has intentions of stealing body armor based technology. Giant robot body armor."

"They're building a giant robot?" Psyche asked.

"That remains to be seen but why this concerns us is because of a computer hacking of our files---files which included an AI simulated spectrograph on Channel. We were trying to figure out how to create both suitable defenses to his mutant abilities as well as a an effective prison, once we learned that Selene had deceived us with his supposed mystical prison," Natsume explained.

"What do you mean by overall security?" Karma asked.

"Basically IRC has been able to act as watchdogs on some high level US and international government projects relating to mutants. In a situation like this, our security protocols supercede theirs. We're allowed to bring you in when their anti-mutant work becomes a public danger."

"So we're helping the people out to destroy us?" Warren accused. "Channel may be a psycho but he's still a mutant and I've fought Sentinels since I was a teenager, it never gets better with them nor have I ever seen them used for a good purpose."

"Warren has a valid point. Why should we help you protect electric chairs intended to sizzle us one day?" Frenzy asked sharply.

"We've done good by you and your team. Your team has caused a lot of radical changes and incidents worldwide. Might I remind you of Neramani? Madripoor? New York? You may not like the work we're asking you to do but I'm not sure that you have as broad a perspective as my position forces me to have" Tom flipped open his cell phone as it buzzed. He listened for a few moments then closed his phone. "If you're interested, I know where Fenris is hold up. You want to stop terrorists or debate socio-political trends."

**Sanctuary Base, Australia:**

Jessica stood in front of a detention cell where Lil, Sylvia, Blindspot and Ace were seated, a high level force field around the entire room, she watched them carefully. Ace was staying on the far side of the room and had refused to even talk to his colleagues, which seemed to have them extremely disturbed.

Ace looked up at Jessica. "I don't want to leave when you send them on their way. I'm asking for Protocol Seven Asylum."

Jessica visibly paled at the knowledge of the code. She nodded politely and turned around. "IT, have Gateway send the others on their way and Ace brought to the situations room in fifteen minutes."

Juggernaut, Nightcrawler and Deathbird stood menacingly around the Situations Room as four guards lead Ace into the room who was wearing a power dampening collar and manacles.

Jessica turned around from a small desk and shook her head. "I've briefed the others on the use of your code words. I've reviewed your file and know that this has happened to you before. But we need confirmation."

"That I'm Emma Frost? Trapped in this fool's body? What more do you need to know?" Ace asked sarcastically.

"Being bitchy isn't exclusive to Emma," Nightcrawler pointed out and took a small device out and pointed it at her." Ace is however emitting brainwaves that match Emma's. Both the one's taken a few months ago and over the course of several years. Ace knowing the codes suggests that in Emma's mental battle with Meridian she was psychically displaced."

"Actually, Kurt, the Enchantress interfered in my psi link and battle. She did something to me. To my body and I had no choice. It's a little fuzzy exactly what happened. Ace is a strong psi though. With a bit more meditation time I'm sure I can get to the bottom of this. My body is out there in the desert somewhere, it would be nice if one of you would trundle along and find it," Ace said snidely.

"It's Emma," Jessica sighed.

"Excuse me?"

Alex whirled around at his desk off of his private quarters and standing there was Misery. Of course she no longer looked like the Queen of Vampires, European Bloc. Instead she was in jeans and a plain sweatshirt, her hair tussled in a silver bob and an innocent smile on her face.

"How did you?" he demanded.

"Get in here? The door was open. I tend to move quiet lightly. Almost silently-­--well silent to your kind." She calmly stayed on the otherside of the desk, letting his heartbeat slow and see her as not a threat. Well, an immediate threat.

Alex made a mental note to adjust IT's settings to provide internal alerts to his comm link. He'd spent too much time alone here and was lax on his security in his personal space. "How may I help you, Misery?"

"I have had my clan out looking for this Enchantress woman. Our vampirism is magic based. Two of them are also psi sensitive. Not massively so but enough to pick up her scent. She's moving fast. I don't think she'll be able to be captured on foot. But I do have an idea of where she might be headed."

"Yes."

"Three hundred miles to the east where she's generally headed is a Place of Power. I'm a relatively young vampirebut I have worked hard to learn as much about my kind as possible. Several hundred years ago there was a small colony of vampires, lead by a King vampire. His name was Base. He was both a sorcerer and a vampire so a lot of his magical energy is within his former catacombs. I reviewed the battle on Gateways butte. She wants to bring her minions here. She is a a Queen. Her minions are a part of her ego, she must risk all to bring them."

"Is it me or is it a little coincidental that you know this Place of Power?" Alex asked skeptically.

"No one asked me. However I am pledged to Lady Amara and therefore by extension to the X-Men. Also I am not insane for vampiric power. I am interested in survival. Bluntly, robbing Base's Place of Power will allow the witch to bring through a million trolls. They will overwhelm and kill everything here. They will make no distinction between human, mutant nor vampire. I act in self-interest for myself and my charges---you can choose to benefit from that or not, " she shrugged.

Alex watched her as she studied him for along minute then casually went over to his bookcase and touched his books gingerly. She looked like an older aunt who was dressed to go gardening but there was an intensity in her gaze that she seemed to be aware of. Which is why she had turned away from him. Over the years he'd learned to read people. She was dangerous. But not in the way most people would think her. She was dangerous in the sense that she had integrated so calmly into their structure. She would always have the opportunity to turn on them. And she would. Alex had no doubt of that. The question was would she be the leader of a revolt or would her people try it alone at first? Or a combination of both?

"Misery, I take it that you have a suggestion? Especially since from what I see on my computer screen your four men on the perimeter security squad have gone no further."

"Dispatch a squad. Check my facts. But take us with you. If Base's power is allowed to be accessed, she will have power over the dead. We're human to her. She'll destroy us---my clan-strong by human standards is weak to Asgardian eyes. Vampires are of no use to her. We have to hurry. You have to make the X-men understand."

"I agree. Sadly, I agree with you almost completely. Two of your people go. You and one other. Meet me in the Situations Room in thirty minutes, I'll have to discuss this with Jessica and the others."

"A vampire hunt?" Jessica sighed.

"You're a man now?" Alex smirked at Ace.

"I'm still contemplating his essence and abilities. Giggle one more time and I might accidentally telekinetically crush your mind. I believe he is using high form telekinesis," Ace threatened, having been allowed to change into white slacks and a white t-shirt. The fact that the neckline was plunging and the slacks a bit too tight suggested Emma was still trying to garner attention from physicality.

"We have the issue of lacking a telepath to secure the vampires if you go, Emma," Jessica said.

"Thank you for calling me by my name, Jessica. And the psi issue with the vampires is moot. There is a sub routine in IT that I created to interface with Cerebra II here. He can activate the mental bombs in the vampires I've psi planted. And I've installed another sub-routine that updates IT to a Frost Industries satellite every four seconds. Should they lose contact with IT, it will start popping heads automatically."

"So you can go on the squad?" Jessica nodded. "Of course this could be a trap set by the bounty hunters or their employers and I already have one squad in the Pacific Rim. While we're heavy on mutants, trained ones are another story."

"But she has my body. We have to pursue her now. She'll tire of it or destroy it. I would. We have to hurry," Ace said and though his voice was a full baritone, the edge of panic could heard from Emma within.

"Agreed," Jessica said. "Emma---Ace, Misery, a vampire, Magma, Deathbird, Nightcrawler. The rest of us will maintain security here and if necessary act as back up."

**Australian Outback:**

He had felt the disturbances before. Little scratches at his spirit and then there was the flash when the entire continent had been separated from the Earth which had destroyed his mystical bonds to the earth. He had lain awake for weeks considering all the new impressions his mind was receiving. All of the changes in the world around him and then when his kind had joined the small town nearby that had so many diverse beings of power, his interest had been peaked enough to climb out of his crypt. At first he'd rested in the cave, covered in the marbleized blood his disciples had shed to their dying breaths when he had decided to rest centuries ago. He'd slowly picked it off, eating it like hard candy, restoring his strength until he could walk into the dark night and hunt animals.

He was careful at first, thinking on what to do. The powers in the world were so different, so numerous that world domination was next to impossible in a short span of time. It would take a grueling war over the course of at least a hundred years and he had no doubt he wouldn't survive the victory. What was a vampire lord to do?

Tentative explorations allowed him to sense many others of his kind on other continents but surely they were surrounded with their own disciples. He would have to rebuild his own. His worshippers were long dead. The world had moved on.

Then he felt the mystic witch moving towards him, almost blindly seeking a place strong in the dark arts. Yes, let her come, even an enemy was an opportunity. For he could sense that she carried the wisp of another powerful being with her. That would be his chance.

The Enchantress stood on a glowing energy disk floating at a steady clip across the Australian outback. She' d consulted her scrying pool before her pushing through to Migard. She had known a brief attack would happen upon Sanctuary which would act as a perfect distraction to her. While she had lost her troll army, they had always been expendable in one way or another. It was more important for her to be able to appear on Migard not under her own power1:hereby not alerting Thor or anyone else from Asgard that she was even gone.

Off in the distance she could see the range of mountains that were like an energy beacon to her. It was old by human standards perhaps close to a thousand years. There was also an intelligence there, a mind behind the power. She turned her head to the dark night where she'd come from, the dawn was close on the horizon and she knew the X-Men were still hunting her. She'd felt their undead running through the desert after her until she'd cleared the perimeter of their technology, reporting back to their bitch. They were coming for her though. She would have very little time to take advantage of the mountains.

She stepped off of her disk at the opening of the cave, the disk turning to a hovering torch that illuminated the cave ahead of her.

**Australian Outback:**

The aircar moved at a steady clip across the pre-dawn outback, Deathbird a thousand feet above it powered by her own wings act as a bird's eye view as it were. Ace/Emma fumed at the thought of having to rely on the technology of the craft to monitor what was going on around them. Telepathy could be so self-indulgent to a telepath after years of practice. It allowed one to see all of the angles, to cross time and space with merely a thought. There was a burgeoning psi strength in Ace's body---telepathy perhaps---but it would take either time or another telepath to help coax forth. And Emma didn't have time for such internal training.

"And what the hell are you all staring at me for!" Ace snarled at Misery, Magma, Nightcrawler and Weiss, a tall Slavic man in his forties that was one of Misery's strongest bodyguards.

"You're a man. Isn't that enough?" Magma chuckled, having taken supreme pleasure in the White Queen's transformation. The fact that Ace was dressed all in white with a white cloak, the whole outfit similar to Emma's costume made the transformation even more striking. Ace was a lean man, in his early twenties, with piercing green eyes and dark features but sharp contours on his cheekbones and eyes. The hint of femininity that he normally possessed seemed almost androgynously exaggerated with Emma now in charge of his body.

"I could do without the staring," Ace sighed angrily.

"You're a stud," Magma smirked. "I'd do you now."

"Oh, the levels of anticipation that brings," Ace replied dryly. "This body is a powerful mutant though, this might even be fortuitous once I'm back to where I should be. With proper training he'll be more than enough to eliminate you, Amara, when your ego and thirst for power take you from an annoyance to a minor threat."

"Ladies! I mean----Magma----Ace! We're all teammates, regardless of the current state of Emma's body or whichever body she is in. And Magma's allegiances are held in check by us, Emma---Ace, she needs our stalwart support not needling," Nightcrawler snapped at the two.

Ace shrugged. "You're right, Kurt. I apologize. Having a penis attached to me, verses inside of me has kind of ruined my normally gentle demeanor."

"Oooooh, that brings up quite a bit of drama doesn't it, Emma? When your betrothed Cyclops finds out about your new predicament. Wow, is predicament now a pun?" Magma laughed heartily and there were several heads turned as the others stifled laughter.

"I will break the Enchantress into small pieces of bone chips and use her to fertilize my lawn," Ace vowed.

"Ms. Frost?" Misery started gently then continued. "Your physical state does bring up the question of what has happened to Ace's mind? Is he in there with you?"

Ace shook his head. "No, I sense I'm the only consciousness in here. There are two possibilities----one, his mind was destroyed by such powerful forces---myself, meridian and the Enchantress all focused at his psyche. Or two, Meridian "has" him for lack of a better understanding."

"Or three," Magma interjected eagerly, "he's in your body!"

Ace grumbled something unintelligible and turned back to the control board.

"That wasn't helpful, Amara," Nightcrawler chided.

"But it was fun!" she giggled and wrapped her red cloak tighter around herself, hair blowing in the air.

Fifteen minutes later they came upon a series of outcroppings from a mountainside that Deathbird signaled was where she had tracked the Enchantress to.

"Bace is here," Misery announced. "Inside the mountain."

"Yes, I can sense him too," Ace agreed. "But not my body nor the Enchantress."

"Flashlights and comm. Links activated, everyone?" Nightcrawler checked the aircar's display board. "I've signaled back to Sanctuary that we've found the mountain range and are going in."

"Stand back," Magma said as she erupted into flames and stepped out of the aircar. "We'll get your body back, Emma. Don't worry," she pointed a hand and blast of lava opened up a tunnel that cooled instantly. Deathbird swooped down and landed next to her teammates as they cautiously entered the darkness.


	25. Now and Forever Pt 3

**X-Men: Sanctuary**

**#25**

**by Kyle Phoenix**

Neramani, Part 2

**Sanctuary:**

Jessica sat in the main control room watching the multitude of screens, a thousand different possible views of the small city. Her squads had done exceptionally well in dealing with the attack, evacuating residents and securing sensitive areas. She and IT had graded the bases' performance at close to 87. For an initial attack, two actually, unrelated but concurrent, they'd done well. They could do better. She sent off a request to X Corp, she needed to bring in ex-military people, particularly mutants who could train her people better than she could. Also she would have IT start monitoring the training of the thousands of mutants that were there already, they needed to catalogue who should be steered towards security detail because of personality and powers.

"Ms. Drew?" IT appeared next to her. "I have a perimeter breach in Sector 18A."

"Onscreen!" Jessica snapped, still tense form the battle. "Magnify," she demanded of the bleary image that was walking towards the perimeter.

It was Emma Frost.

In diamond form walking towards the town, seemingly haggard and dazed.

"Any word from the squad going to Bace?" Jessica asked.

IT answered promptly," Confirmation log of arrival and penetration of the mountain. That was three hours and nineteen minutes ago."

"Shall I have the Emma Frost diamond form engaged by security?"

"Akasa?" Jessica said into the comm link. Immediately Raphael's stern face appeared on the screen.

"I'm in Sector 17 D. IT has briefed me and my small detail on Emma's return. I however am not picking up any mental consciousness form the form. Even in diamond form, Ms. Frost gives off a mental aura. I would surmise that it is merely Ms. Frost's diamond form returning on instinct to the Cerebra mental homing beacon Ms. Frost's consciousness created around Sanctuary."

"So her body has come back? Weird." Jessica watched the screen of the body trudging towards the base, mindless and blank faced.

"In her diamond form, Bace probably wouldn't be able to harm her or even stop her," Akasa suggested.

"Ok, so how do we stop her? Until we can get Ace back here to put the right consciousness in the right body?" Jessica asked him.

"I'll meet the body and mentally lull it. Then I would suggest a containment cell be made ready," Akasa said.

"Do it," Jessica said to both him and IT and watched as Akasa's motorcycle raced towards Emma's body. "IT, link with Cerebra and lower the psi baffle field and let the body in. Akasa, you have to intercept her and give me a status immediately, I'll only keep Cerebra's field down for two minutes."

"Understood, Ms. Drew."

Akasa stopped his motorcycle a hundred meters from Emma's walking form. He walked carefully the rest of the, in constant telepathic contact with the body. Slowly scanning as much as he could. He hadn't known that the diamond form made Ms. Frost so impervious to telepathy but trying to touch whatever instinctive mind was pushing the body was like trying to navigate a hall of mirrors. Finally he found something, instinctual about the X-Men. About trusting them and he touched it gently. Assured it that the body was safe, that the X-Men were present. The body stopped walking and fell to her knees. Then slowly like water seeping away, the diamond form became flesh and blood again.

Akasa moved closer and took off his heavy riding jacket and wrapped it around the naked body. Her thoughts were chaotic and flitting but he could discern a fight with Bace, a mystical blast that sent her hurtling through the sky and landing miles away. Luckily, she'd turned to diamond form and instinctually trudged through the early dawn to here.

"You're safe now," Akasa assured, as he held her. Lightly looking for what had happened to the X-Men that had gone to retrieve her. There was something at the edge of her thoughts though, something that he couldn't quite pin down. His telepathy wile stronger now after the Hellfire immersion, lacked refinement, it was taking him so much time to learn how to exactingly specific with it, it was frustrating.

"AKASA!" Jessica yelled over his comm link, shaking his attention away from Emma's body and mind.

"Ms. Drew?" Akasa said into his comm link and feeling her panic and anxiety miles away let sweep his telepathy over the city. He could finally see that the edge he'd felt on Emma's find was in fact a seeping. A thought. A call. No, more than that. A spell. A spell held within Emma's diamond form, brought through the shield's and released to----what end?

Akasa realized that Jessica's panic must be at what she could see that he couldn't sense. And that's when he knew.

The vampires.

Emma's body had been a Trojan Horse to allow Bace to get control of Misery's vampires. Also her residual telepathy would have been enough to link with Cerebra. Akasa turned and saw dozens of them speeding through the air towards him. His thoughts flashed to the telepathic "dead man switch" the real Emma had implanted in Cerebra to kill the vampires and found it deactivated.

Emma's body snarled and bared fangs almost half a foot long, her jaw snapping to accommodate them as she lunged for his throat, Akasa reacted faster through, from clutching her to rolling back and flipping her over him and into the dirt. When he turned, she'd ripped off the jacket and transformed back to diamond, fangs still protruding and came charging at him. As he ducked out of her charge, he could now feel the full impact of the malevolent mind behind animating her. Was that Bace? What else could it be? Akasa felt like he'd skidded to the edge of a chasm of darkness. He mentally backpedaled, by shutting off his telepathy and focused on flipping backwards, out of Emma's wild blows until he was in a better position to let fly with his psionic shruiken. He watched as they harmless bounce doff of her body, the confluence of her physical form and telepathic powers, he suspected.

The wind moved subtlety behind him and he dropped to the ground, a vampire's first narrowly missing his skull. Four more had suddenly materialized around him, moving faster than the human eye could follow. One kicked him, sending him into a tree as another grabbed his arms from behind. Akasa slammed his body backwards then using a ninja muscle relaxation technique dropped out of the crude hold and projected his psi energy as a spear through one vampire's head and then as a psi bolt into the other. Even as their compatriots fell dead, exploding in flames, the others didn't falter, one savagely slamming into Akasa and the other sinking fangs into his arm.

Akasa wanted to shriek but before he could even utter, Emma's diamond fists began pummeling him, her blows shattering bone with every strike. Akasa tried to lash of psionically at them but he found that even though her touch were blows, the very contact acted as intense psionic static, negating his mental powers. Refusing to give up Akasa twisted his body so that vampire whose mouth was attached to his arm took her next blow then he released a torrent of psi needles into the vampires, shredding it's brain. He whirled the body around again as it burst into flames, slamming the flaming sack of rotten flesh into Emma's face.

A vampire behind Akasa grabbed his throat and smashed his face into the dirt, the battle still eerily silent and the young mutant felt not only his consciousness slipping away but he feared his life too. His body was too beaten and broken to react anymore, for all the skills he'd been force fed, the learning of how to instinctually implement them in a fight was slapdash at best. And now he was paying for it.

_Don't lose faith, boy, you're not alone_, came the mental assurance. A gateway portal opened on top f Akasa and out shot first two metal lines that impaled the vampire in the chest and then gunfire that took off it's head as Carlos appeared, standing literally on top of Akasa, his feet planted firmly on each side of the bleeding boy's body.

"I see we've had a shift, eh?" Carlos grinned at Emma's body and fired his shotgun at her face. She didn't even flinched as the rounds bounced off of her diamond hard skin. "That was just the set up!"

Carlos dropped the gun, his hand casting a sigil in the air and the emerging sunlight suddenly focused onto her body ten, a hundred, then a thousand times creating a prism that the other vampires shrieked and recoiled from. Where once they were using her as a beacon to surround the X-Men, now they were trying to desperately get away from her. Carlos knew that vampires could tolerate sunlight, some myths didn't hold for Misery's bunch but intense, focused sunlight was too much for them. His mystical flash spell wouldn't last long though, he knew as he hefted Akasa and ran toward the motorcycle. The fact that he was in the middle of the desert silk pajama bottoms with a satchel of weapons on one shoulder and a badly beaten wannabe ninja on the other, caused him to chuckle lightly---he couldn't stay away from danger even in his sleep. There were of course at least a dozen vampires chasing him though.

Another gateway portal opened a step behind Carlos and Cain Marko stepped out. "Ok, let's rock!" he roared and slammed a fist into the dozen chasing vampires, sending them to the ground.

Emma finally switched to human, the dazzling effect immediately ended and shrieked harshly at the X-Men, her voice raspy. "They are not our concern! Back to our lord!"

The vampires stopped and dozens of them swirled down around her blonde naked form like a whirlwind of black locusts and scooped her into the air back towards Bace's mountain.

Carlos set Akasa down gently as Cain stood over them protectively.

"Jessica? IT?" Carlos said over his comm link. "We're going to need a medical unit, he took a heavy beating. We got here in time though, mainly bruises and a broken jaw I think."

"Acknowledged," Jessica answered. "I'm tracking the vampires crossing the outback now."

"It's safe to assume that squad is either unaware of what's headed their way or they were waylaid earlier. I'm not picking up a sense of death, so Amara and Cal are still alive but we need to figure out how to back them up," Carlos said as he and Cain stepped through one of Gateway's portals and appeared in the Medical Lab. Jessica was already there prepping a medical bed unit that Carlos gently set Akasa in, their conversation from comm link to person not being interrupted.

"I've put Sanctuary on Lockdown. I need all trained X-men to stay here until we can set up a proper engagement force. We're going to have to trust the others to beat the vampires---I need you both here in case another attack comes."

"Jessica! A hundred vampires just went after----!" Carlos started angrily.

"Carlos!" she snapped over him. "That wasn't a request. If you want to be in the X-Men then you have to follow our protocol. And Sanctuary protocol is that this city's safety comes first! No matter what."

"The others could be in horrible danger or they soon will be, we can't abandon them like this!" Carlos raged.

"Abandon them? You idiot! They're X-Men! This is what their bizarre genetic and psychological pathology has lead them to do. They chose this life in general and this mission in particular. Now in Sanctuary, there are thousands of people who either don't have mutant abilities or do or still don't know how to protect themselves. That's what I'm for and anyone here is for. That's what Akasa took this beating for. You and Cain were able to hold off a group of vampires. Just two of you. Imagine what Akasa would've looked like had you run off to protect Magma---_who can move the goddamn earth and call up it's molten core_! You want me to worry about her versus the other residents of this town---innocents, men, women and children who have no training in this kind of fight?"

"Jessica, he's worried about them is all. You didn't see the vampires, or the vampire Ms. Frost," Cain interrupted. "They're a tough bunch heading there."

"Cain, back off. Carlos is new to the X-Men. Technically he's spent most of his time with the X-Men away from the discipline and hard choices of the X-Men, now he has to decide if he's just a tagalong who'll do as he pleases or a true member who will adhere to the greater good," Jessica said angrily.

Carlos opened his mouth to say something else angrily then swallowed it and nodded briskly. "I'll take care of Akasa. You two secure the place, I'll change and be in the Situations Room in ten minutes."

"Good," Jessica said. "Come on, Cain, we've got to secure this place against returning vampires now. And for god sakes, Carlos, wear underwear under your pajamas around here, you are too much of temptation in silk walking around here in the damn desert!" she yelled over her shoulder.

Carlos laughed heartily as he activated the Shi'ar bio-bed and thought carefully about what Jessica had said. With Dani and Warren in Japan and Cal and Amara miles away, this was the first time he'd been an X-Men alone without one of them as a crutch or a lead. This was the first time he would have to define what it meant for him to be an X-Man. Perhaps this had been his fear all the years he had rejected Xavier's offers? He couldn't stand seeing people go off to possible death though he had been alive and dead so many times himself. He knew that he would return no matter what.

One of the terrible consequences of his mutant ability was constantly starting new relationships with people, friends and lovers and knowing he might see them die. Many times he had tried to live as an emotionless monk, exiling himself from others but the nature of his powers, his awareness and memories sometimes flooding back in his genetic ancestors adolescence or late teens meant that all of his emotional connections and desires to connect were in place long before he became fully conscious that he was alive again.

There was an empathetic flash from behind him and when he turned a tall bald Black was standing there, staring at him. He was wearing a dark bodysuit with a yellow built with a stylized X insignia mixed with another symbol.

"Do I know you?" Carlos asked calmly.

"No, not yet. I am Joshua. This is the crux point. This is when Emma was first separated, isn't it?" he asked, looking around the medical lab. "Cecelia isn't here? But she's still alive?"

"For a man with no clearance to be here, you have a lot of questions. I'll have o ask you to stand still though, as I alert security," Carlos held up his shotgun. "We're going through a slightly mistrustful time as you well know."

"The vampire lord has Emma then? Sanctuary still looks reasonably secure, physically and mentally," Joshua said with a quick scanning of the city. Carlos almost buckled at the sheer telepathic weight that Joshua gave off so calmly.

"Bace seems to have used Emma to co-opt Misery's vampires as his own. A good strategy. The question does beggar though who you are?"

Joshua grinned then allowed the energy to seep from his body and erupt up through the lab as he spoke. "Now and forever, I am Phoenix!" The energy bird able to be seen for miles around.

**Neramani, Capital City Emi:**

Lilandra sat in her royal bed, having distinctly unroyal thoughts.

She was exhausted with almost twenty four negotiations and response to demands from Earth's governments. The constant questions and appeals and veiled threats were testing her patience. Her people on Neramani were paupers compared to her former kingdom but they'd been given plenty of Shi'ar technology; she could lead an invasion to take this world by force rather than cooperation with an ease that would surprise the Terrans.

But she was playing fair.

That didn't mean that she didn't think about the spies who'd already signaled back that they'd successfully integrated themselves in a variety of Earth cultures around the world. What else could she do but immediately send them out once she'd landed? Her small cabinet had agreed that they had to prepare for the inevitable conflict, first by knowing about it ahead of time. The force field generator that her brother had left them was discovered to be on a timer, it wouldn't last out a Terran year and then what? Who would attack first and who would come to the Shi'ar's aid? The hated X-Men? Once her closest friends it would be too soon before she heard or saw them again.

"Ummmmm excuse me?" came a tentative familiar voice and Lilandra whirled around, snatching a blaster form under her pillow. "Hi," Kitty waved innocently, wearing the robes of a servant girl, her face unmasked.

"I take it this has to do with the shield disturbance three days ago?" Lilandra scowled. "Aren't your people suppose to request through formal channels entrance to my land? Do you X-Men _ever_ follow protocol?"

"Seems not, Empress. And yes, that disturbance was the X-Men trying to prevent the Marauders from gaining entrance to your land. We were tricked, so we failed."

"The Marauders?" Lilandra said with concern. She'd been close to the X-Men when the villainous team had first attacked the Morlocks and the X-Men, she knew the carnage they had wrought, how dangerous they had been, she'd talked to Charles about it. She pushed thoughts of comforting him out of her mind, though the telepaths had deadened her feelings about him to assuage her madness, she still had to consciously reject any memories of him in a positive or sentimental light. There would be no pain, if she allowed for only minimal thoughts about him.

"There have been no reports of X-Men or Marauders on Neramani," Lilandra snapped.

"I know that," Kitty snapped back, "I haven't been twiddling my thumbs here the past three days. Your society is pretty up and running and I cut my teeth on Shi'ar technology as a kid, I've checked out every corner of this place for my people. Which means only one thing."

"They were expected and are being aided, hidden by their sponsor," Lilandra surmised.

"Yes, but I don't even know where to start looking through a continent for a dozen people if they don't want to be found."

"We're fractured--------not everyone was pleased to be here. Not everyone was pleased to be here with me. I've presented a unified face to your people but behind this shield we teeter or the brink of insurrection, civil war. At least twenty percent of my populace is ready to war. They want to attack your people and/or leave Earth. Their final plans are unclear which is the small respite for why they haven't started a war yet."

"Yes, I've been able to glean that from the computer systems I've accessed. Maybe for our intrusion we can help you? And I don't know if anyone has told you before but I'm sorry for what happened to you, to your people."

Lilandra's face softened. "Thank you, Kitty. I take it you're in your phased state? You must become solid so that my internal security will pick you up, the Queen has been mad. Should I be observed even by my loyalists as talking to myself, to ghosts, I'll be deposed fast."

"Oh, sorry," Kitty grinned and became solid. "What do we do now?"

"We'll approach my intelligence ministers and start investigating likely candidates for recruiting the Marauders as a strike force."

"We could---," Kitty shrieked and fell to the ground, having been shot by Lilandra in the back with the energy pistol.

"Or you might consider that I was the one who hired the Marauders," Lilandra whispered to the unconscious form.

**Australian Outback:**

Ace woke up to the flickering of the flames in the corner. A hanging torch it looked like. Immediately he tried to reach out with his telepathy to see what was going on around him then he remembered, he wasn't Emma Frost telepath anymore. He was Ace, mutant with strong psi potential and super powers who had come here looking for his/her purloined body. They had entered the mountain from an outcropping above, through a tunnel created by Magma and tunneled down to the various catacombs where Bace was supposedly buried.

It was obvious that Bace was both awake and pissed at their unannounced arrival.

Ace's eyes focused on the other X-men, pinned to the walls as well by mystical shackles as a large dark skinned man, obviously Bace held Misery up by her throat. Next to him stood a naked Emma Frost, vampiric fangs protruding gleefully. There were also dozens of Misery's vampires standing around. They weren't even blinking at the abuse of their mistress. Former mistress, Ace decided. It was obvious Bace had used the Emma Frost body, perhaps even her natural telepathy to free the vampires from the Sanctuary psi guards and bring them under Bace's thrall. Ace looked at the hanging Weiss, Nightcrawler, Magma and Deathbird. Everyone was groggy, probably form the glittering energy bands on hands and feet but otherwise unharmed. And more importantly, unbitten. Ace couldn't say the same about his/her former body.

"These vampires are mine!" Magma barked angrily.

"Silence!" Bace hissed and the mystical bonds on her arms and legs tightened until she gasped in pain. "I can neutralize your life as easily as I neutralize your powers."

"What is it you want, Bace? You haven't made us like your kind yet. Release us, this battle isn't necessary," Nightcrawler pleaded.

Ace thought it was a bit out of character from him to be so charitable to a villain until he felt the X-Man's tail wriggling up Ace's back, putting something into the back of Ace's pants. Whatever it was began to itch Ace, but at the same time Ace felt the mystical bonds weakening slightly. There was a flicker of anger from Misery's eyes to Ace's then a glance at Deathbird who was tapping her wrist gauntlet nervously.

Ace understood. The X-Men had been waiting for him to wake up, they had some sort of plan in the works. Ace focused, knowing that the mutant powers of his body were both physical and telekinetic in nature until a bare wisp of a concussive blast snapped from his eyes and into Deathbird's wrist, a javelin shooting out into the ceiling, exploding on contact.

The distraction was enough for Bace to turn and Misery to slam both of her fists into his chest, knocking them to the floor. The caves began to tremble as Magma's body erupted into it's lava form, her roars and anger fueling the power she demanded serve her over the restraints.

"Ace!" Nightcrawler shouted. "Misery's amulet will neutralize the bonds! Hurry!"

Ace now understood that at some point Misery must've given Nightcrawler some sort of protective amulet or mystical disruption amulet and he had slipped it into his back pocket. With more focusing, Ace wrenched each way until he fell to the floor. Immediately vampires were on him but he swatted them away with a concussive blast. Then turned and blasted his teammates free.

"Bace!" Ace roared. "You have something of mine!"

Bace tossed Misery to the side and with a simple thought Emma Frost turned to diamond and slammed into the white clad X-Men. Even in the midst of an earthquake, Bace could sense an affinity between the white clad man and his new servant but there wasn't time to concern himself with it's nature. He waved and his new vampire horde flocked into the large cavern attacking the freed X-Men as he back pedaled to one of the exits, ready to leave but still watching the battle.

Misery suddenly leaped from the floor at him, Bace swatted her to the ground and bared fangs at her.

"Yours are mine now, pup. Stay back or I'll flay you as an example."

"You're weak, vampire master, we shouldn't be able to tire you this easily. Binding only a few mutants shouldn't have drained you," she laughed darkly. Bace knew she was right, he needed both more time and blood to tap his full reserves. The magical blood the Enchantress had given him had perfected his body's return but his mystical powers were another thing. He'd done a lot in a short period of time in assembling a small force. He couldn't wage such a pitched battle yet. Soon but not yet.

"Yours, pup. Today but I am free and that's all that truly matters," he kicked Misery across the cavern and lashed out with a mystical blast that ensnared Magma. She tried to shield her body at first until she realized that he wasn't trying to harm her, in fact her was using her. Her control over her powers lessened and the earthquake erupted out of control, lava began bursting from the floor and Bace laughed as acrid smoke and sulfur smells filled the chamber.

"To me, my pet!" he yelled and Emma slammed Ace into a wall and ran to her master.

"No! My body!" Ace screamed as the ceiling began to collapse.

Twenty minutes later in the hot morning there was first a puff of smoke away from the mountain and then a moment later a burst of fiery brimstone as Nightcrawler appeared with Misery, Ace, Magma, Weiss and Deathbird.

"My body!" Ace sobbed as the mountain behind them crumbled in ruins.

"Is not in there, I assure you," Misery said, drawn and taught. Weiss handed her his coat and she threw it over her head and body to protect herself from the sunlight. He stood calmly in the sun, his mutant ability of solar collection overriding his vampiric nature to burn. "Bace has escaped with my legion and your body. I sensed a transport spell as the walls came down."

"So now I have no army?" Magma said sadly. "I'm back to square one?"

"Seems like you all lost a lot to Bace," Nightcrawler said looking at the rubble. "Can we track him, Cal?"

"It will take some time but yes, I should be able to if I spend some time out here. Even mystics leave a slight trail. I can approximate direction and then Misery should be able to help further."


	26. Neramani Pt 2

X-Men: Sanctuary # 26

Roster:

Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat

Sabine

Peter Rasputin

Spike

Sunspot

Marrow

John Riedl

Ace

Alex Rosten

Talisman

Archangel

Psyche

Chamber

Chaxaza

Karma

Frenzy

The Isle Shi'ar Nation of Neramani:

Kitty woke up with an odd feeling of peace about herself. The fuzziness prevented her from feeling any sense of terror or of fear at her situation. In fact she wasn't sure what she felt about anything but an abiding peace. Looking around the room at her teammates---Spike, Marrow, Sabine, Peter, Sunspot and the fugitive mutant John Riedl she knew that they felt the same.

"Don't try and fight it, Kitty," Spike said to her calmly, a smile on her face. "We're being whammied by some sort of telepathic calm me down. If you fight it you'll lose conscious. Sarah is having the most trouble with it. She feeds off of her rage, to some degree it's a deep seeded part of her." Then Cecelia smiled warmly.

It was downright creepy.

Kitty looked over at Marrow who sat huddled in a corner; her head curried between her knees a look of humiliated happiness on her face. As if she were faking joy at a painful cost.

"I'm going to recommend in a short time that she just be unconscious. I don't know what kind of damage this is doing to her psyche to be so----happy," Spike offered, even her worry coming out optimistically and with a smile.

"Good. You're awake," Lilandra said sternly as she entered the large room with several armed guards behind her.

"You shot me," Kitty accused.

"I stop an unauthorized intruder into my inner sanctum. It was well within my rights. The real problem lies in what it means that you have penetrated this shield."

"What about the Marauders?" Kitty demanded, with a smile.

"My brother Canaan provided none of my usual Praetor Guards with me. They are conscripted to serve only the holder of the throne. You X-Men have no idea what occurs outside of your mutant obsessed microcosm. When Cassandra Nova ravaged the Empire, I lost not only power but also the faith of my people. Those that Canaan banished here with me are not all my allies. In fact by my best estimates close to thirty percent of a population of forty million are actively and deeply against me. The force field wasn't just to keep Terrans out but also to keep maniacal, angry Shi'ar refugees in," Lilandra said fiercely. She took a moment and composed herself then spoke again. "There are only two solutions: extraction or extermination. I would prefer not to kill millions of people. So I've created a gambit that only you X-Men could appreciate. I've sent a small squad of Marauders to kill my brother."

Roberto DaCosta shrugged. 'Why would we care?"

"The pact between my brother and I will bring his wrath upon Earth. It will look as if you, Terrans, killed him to reinstall me as the rightful leader and get me off of your world," Lilandra explained coolly.

'The Marauders won't succeed," Peter said in understanding.

"Highly unlikely but they will spark his return to take retribution upon Earth. His second option was to eradicate humanity, most likely with a pathogen, and leave this world to me. With a world at my disposal, I can banish the dissidents to Neramani and claim your unscorched, humanless Earth and rebuild the twenty odd million left over. Of course this is where you X-Men will appreciate my cleverness as to how to get us both what we want and need. You will be sent to stop the Marauders. If you succeed, you will have the esteem of both my brother and I, and your fellow humans will be spared. And upon his return here, I can show him that my mounting enemies were the ones who sent the Marauders. Again within the exile pact, he will by Shi'ar law have to remove them from being any danger to myself."

"Either way you win. In some form," Kitty observed. "But what if we just tell your brother what you're up to?"

"It won't matter. I can prove differently."

"I'll have to consult with my fellow X-Men about this. The ones in Sanctuary."

"No time. You leave now," and with that Lilandra vanished. More appropriately the X-Men vanished and reappeared aboard the Avery in deep space.

Psychologically it was as if a bubble had just popped and there was an audible gasp from all of the X-Men. Peter immediately ran to his control seat, sat down and reached out with his techno-telepathy to his precious ship.

"Something's wrong," Peter announced. "There have been marked changes to some of the navigational designs. Coordinates programmed in. I'm trying to override them but it…won't allow me. Avery won't allow me to do it!"

"Where are we?" John asked looked out the cockpit window.

"About a thousand clicks above the Blue Area of the Moon. A former Shi'ar was here," Peter answered, his voice rising in panic. "A program is coming online. In Shi'ar. I can't stop it. I can't even examine it, it's happening so fast."

Kitty sat down in a seat and shook her head trying to gather her thoughts as she cued into the communications system and created a data package to send to the Sanctuary Base. She knew where this was going literally.

Stargate.

A moment later, there was an iridescent opening; the Avery's engines powered up and the ship disappeared across the galaxy.

Sanctuary City,

Australia:

Ace sat brooding in a white silk slack and shirt set. He refused to give up style even trapped in a body that while a great male specimen wasn't what Emma had begun with or hoped to end with.

Alex was watching Ace cautiously from across the cavernous Situations Room, dozens of video screens suspended from the cavern walls relaying events all over the world that the X-Men would find of interest.

"Please stop staring, Alex, it's so tedious that I refuse to even go outside anymore. I'm tired of gawkers," Ace sighed.

"I'm sorry, Ace. I guess we're all looking for Emma in your movements, in your clothing, in your speech. It's taking some getting used to, you understand?"

"Yes, of course I do. Nightly I'm doing telepathic exercises with four telepaths across the globe to increase Ace's telepathic abilities. Now I pick up leaking thoughts. Irritating but better than being headblind. He has Omega level potential and once I get his body there, I'll find Bace and my enslaved body."

"We're all with you, Ace. Don't worry. Let's discuss what we can affect now."

Ace shook his head. "The Sanctuary team is both expansive and at the moment fractured. Magma, her Hellfire minion, Chaxaza, Chamber, Psyche, Archangel, Frenzy, Karma and Tran in Japan dealing with Fenris. M, Northstar, Iceman and Paulie in New York dealing with the crime families' assemblage of mutant henchmen. The most interesting squad, Kitty's, has vanished. Kitty, Peter, Spike, Sabine, Sunspot and Marrow aren't anywhere that our systems can detect them on Earth. I've even tapped into X Corp resources, both telepathic and technological. Our last recording of them is leaving Sydney, Australia hunting a one, John Riedl. That was weeks ago. I doubt they're dead. But we don't even know where to start looking for them."

"The Avery's systems have multiple trackers on board. Ari and Hunter have been on constant monitor duty from Outpost 1," Alex explained. He grinned to himself, having a Shi'ar warship cloaked in Earth's orbit as their first foray into space and overhead protection, eye in the sky had been an inspired touch of panache he liked to think.

"How operational is the ship?"

"Ari says close to seventy percent. Most systems focused on maintaining the cloaking systems so that even our Shi'ar on Neramani nor those presumably watching from deep space know it's there."

"It does cut down on a lot of our dependence on Earth bound technology for the comm link to the Institute and all of the X Corp sites. We have a fully wireless and if necessary wholly telepathic network, if desired. We have a basic security squad here consisting of myself, Carlos, Juggernaut, Jessica Drew, Nightcrawler, Misery and Nemesis. We're stretched thin but we still have outstanding issues to deal with."

"Quantum," Alex said wearily. "We're sure of his location?"

"The Savage Land, yes. And since he kicked our teams' ass on his way out from destroying part of Manhattan and terrorizing Madripoor, we should make it our number one priority to bring him in. Xavier was a fool to not have killed him when they first met. He's not the kind of mutant that could just be left wandering around the globe as a freelance quantum powered mutant."

_I had my reasons, Emma_. Xavier's astral body stood at the otherside of the room.

"You're early, Charles," Ace snapped.

_I thought you would jockey and start early. Body transference has always made you surlier_, Xavier said gently, though the ribbing was still in his voice.

"A "fuck you" would then be expected?" Ace sneered. "Any luck finding Bace and our missing cadre of vampires? IT no longer has them on the Shi'ar comm link satellite network I set up to pop their little minds should they get out of hand."

"There are two possibilities, "Alex interjected, "it was disconnected by their being destroyed so there is no longer anything to latch onto. The second is that, under Bace's control, your body has disconnected them."

"I'd go with choice one. My body had rudimentary consciousness but that was more of an enforced puppetry from Bace himself. I'm fully in this body and I don't sense Ace at all. Anywhere. So he's not in my body. When I encountered my body there would've been a psychic tug had he been there. It's all Bace's power controlling my body."

_Then we have to find Bace_, Xavier affirmed. _I'll reach out to Bissou. And though Talisman is on…..leave….I'll contact her to see if she can wrap that up, lead a small squad against Bace. In the meantime, I would think it best to deal with Quantum and Channel. Emma, at the moment you still possess the most experience in dealing with Omega level mutants even in your current form. And the preliminary tests you've run on Ace show considerable might. I submit that you assemble a squad and go after the two. It will give you something constructive to do while we track down Bace._

"Ooh, goody," Ace sneered. "I won't wait for long, Charles. My own resources are considerable and I will find Bace on my own if you don't and by then I will have mastered this bodies power and gladly rend a city for my body back."

Tokyo, Japan:

Archangel couldn't dispute that flying, by any means was glorious. Even if his wings were insectile and he had scales on his back from where the wings extended from his shoulder blades. The blood thirst to impregnate others wasn't as strong, in fact it felt like something on the tip of his tongue but not quite possible. Like a longing for a favorite food or an ability lost. Maybe like the razor sharp blades he'd been able to hurl years before when Apocalypse had first started making his DNA and mutant genome malleable? It would be interesting to get a look at that villain's work on him, the raw data, what he could learn. When the time was right, a visit to the Xavier Institute for a consultation with the Beast would probably do him good.

The wings though. Different and yet the same. He could move faster. Almost close to three hundred miles per hour and his ability to cut corners, to change direction, to perform aerodynamics was vastly increased. Before he had constantly compensated for wingspan, for air currents, for obstacles-----flying with wings looked good. It was hard as hell to master having fifteen foot wide appendages that were at the mercy of winds. But these wings were barely a foot longer than his arm span and yet there seemed to be some sort of rotating hyper speed to them that provided such speed and power.

Or perhaps it was his own genetic influence? He knew instinctually how to make better wings, what was necessary and what was superfluous. Could that be at work here? They resembled Brood wings but he could feel some influences from his own thoughts and with concentration he could do simple things like make them thicker or thinner for different altitudes, different speeds. That had always been something he'd wanted to be able to manipulate---the contour of his wings, the weight. With his hollow like a bird bones the wings were more flying his body than the old way of his body and back muscles being responsible for so much grounding and movement.

The slight humming he gave off from the vibration of the wings was something he'd have to work on but he was slowly gliding from a mile above the warehouse district to get the drop on Fenris. The twins, Andreas and Andrea were on the tanker below----confirmed by the IRC and he was looking forward to capturing them.

_Perhaps that is your Brood influence?_ Psyche asked through their rapport. _This feeling of aggressiveness, of edge I sense form you?_

_Maybe_, Archangel grinned then mentally signaled her to cue the others to board the tanker. His avian sharp eyesight had spotted twenty armed guards on the ship deck but no sign of the twins. He wanted his team onto the ship and at the throats of the Strucker twins before they could use their powers.

_Frenzy acknowledges she's climbed up the port side, she's in place_, Psyche confirmed to him. It was an advantage to have a mental relay system with Psyche, boosted by Chamber's slight telepathy---the two of them on a rooftop nearby, keeping track of the team moving in. Chamber kept track of where everyone was and Psyche relayed it to the Archangel. Archangel relayed orders to her and Chamber telepathically was able to tell one person at a time. It would be nice when Chamber's telepathy became stronger, but for now it was plenty for the stealth they needed. Archangel signaled for Frenzy to move in, she was becoming a valuable, powerful X-Man who worked hard to earn their trust as well as defeat many a villain, he was proud of her.

Frenzy was proud of herself as she hopped quietly over the ship railing, smoothly moving into a karate kick that took out a guard. She was on top of his partner, hand slamming his head into her forearm, her own body so super dense it was like hitting steel, and tumbling to a crouching position. Chamber's light telepathy like a whisper in her ear, she knew a sentry was around the corner and struck out, a solid punch, catching the body and snatching it into the darkness so fluidly that she marveled at how helpful Chamber was on one of their first close contact missions together. There were so many of them on the Sanctuary team but there had been a breakdown to squads by circumstance that she wasn't as familiar with everyone as she thought she should be. Chamber was most definitely pulling his weight, she thought as she attacked two more guards and slammed them into each other.

"Clear," she whispered over her comm link and got Chamber's telepathic ascent and then he was gone from her mind, his presence like a faint crackling light in her mind's eye. She waited as he moved to the next X-Man to secure the starboard portion of the ship.

Karma moved fast---possession, drug tipped needles, half a dozen bodies left unconscious in as many minutes. Her power the best suited to engage the twins who according to Chamber's light telepathic whisper were in a stateroom below. They kept constant proximity to one another, obviously feeling more secure to access their mutant power through touch. Karma's job was to make that point moot. Without hesitation she dove over the starboard side railing, her fingertips and toes magnetically attaching to the side and she crawled down----ala Spiderwoman. It had actually been Jessica Drew's idea to add the magnetics to her costume to allow this little trick. Karma was appreciative of the attention, she wanted to be a viable force and had come to the conclusion long ago that her possession power would have to be applied in concert with her own ingenuity. As she crawled down to the porthole and peaked in, she was pleased at what was to come next---a trick she and Tran had worked out. She caught a glimpse of Andrea Strucker standing, looking at a wall map and snapped at her with her possession power then allowed Tran to take over her body and he astrally sailed through the bulkhead. Once inside he reverted back his sister's form---his arm having snapped up so that her's was extended and releasing a sedative dart---the action having occurred in less than a split second---appearing almost as if Karma had simply appeared in the room.

"Bitch!" Andreas shrieked, he'd been lying on the divan under the porthole, as he slammed a fist into Karma's back. Her Kevlar and metal meshed costume that looked like thin green silk absorbed so much of the surprise blow that she barely felt it. She lashed out with a sharp kick to his stomach, maintaining her focus on holding his sister's mind that was fighting both the drug and the possession. It was a dangerous gambit to send Karma in alone but her one failsafe was that she could become a ghost that couldn't be harmed should she feel overwhelmed by the two. As she spun around, slamming an elbow into Andreas stomach and then flipping him to the floor, she almost felt sorry for him.

Andrea screamed across the room and leaped for her brother. Karma extended her arms forward and switched to Tran who sailed across the room then switched back to his sister right before contact with the woman, Karma's fist slamming the sister into the wall. Karma re-doubled her mental possession of Andrea and ordered her to sleep, which she slumped to the floor in.

"You have no idea how much I'm going to skin you, gook!" Andreas roared and raised his hands and blasted Karma.

"Shan!" Chamber gasped, his light telepathic touch having felt her shock and pain at the energy bolt that had struck her. "That bastard blasted her! But he wasn't touching his sister! He wasn't touching his sister!"

Psyche didn't hesitate as she stood up and spoke into her comm link. "The rabbits are biting back. Move in!" With that she let half a dozen psi arrows fly at targets on the boat. Though her range was limited they burst into bright sparkles as they hit the deck and the guards fired at her and Chamber who were already dashing across the rooftop. A swath of smoke rose from the water alongside the docked side of the ship and Psyche and Chamber held out their hands as Chazaxa rose from the ground, her plasma mist covering her retrieval of them as she flew them from the rooftop to the ship.

"I'm in!" Archangel said to his teammates as he kicked down the stateroom door and dove at Andreas. The Strucker twin grinned and blasted the floor of the stateroom---a disintegration bolt dropping them all to the holds below. Archangel grabbed Karma and hovered as Andreas grabbed his sister and rolled to the ground below with a grace that made Archangel wonder if the X-Men's files were complete on the twins' abilities. He focused his enhanced Brood sense of smell at the twins and detected some sort of metal on their waists under their clothes. Some sort of belts, he suspected. Energy repositories to give each twin a little burst of power or to use that power for other things? Too many variables.

"Frenzy, move in!" Archangel ordered. "B Team, secure secondary targets and bring in IRC to surround the ship. We're going to mop them up fast."

"Check," Psyche said, already on the deck shooting psi arrows to incapacitate the secondary targets, the guards. Chamber let loose with psi concussive blasts, knocking the men out of their hiding places before they could even fire at the X-Men. Chazaxa hovered above, picking off the rest with plasma blasts.

Deep Space:

"Is this really a good idea?" John asked. He'd been plastered to the thick glass window looking out at the cosmos for hours. Cecelia came over to him, a thermal blanket around her sipping a cup of tea.

"Turning off the excessive internal heat so as not to be detected while Peter puts our cloaking system into effect or rocketing halfway across the galaxy to save a king who will kill all of us before we even get to speak?"

"Well….I understand all of that. That thing….Malice left me soon after we landed on Neramani. What I meant was getting so close to what looks like ten thousand ships?"

"Actually it's thirty two thousand seven hundred and fifteen ships. That's not counting loading vessels and repair platforms," Peter's disembodied voice said from above them. His body sat in the control seat, a helmet on his head that covered his face completely---no wires connected to everything but a complete interface to the ship. His hands literally danced constantly across several dozen pivoting and rotating holographic keyboards around him. Cecelia had insisted upon taking his vitals and having them downloaded to her handheld comm device to make sure he hadn't overexerted himself but he was the perfect specimen. Completely in his element merged with the Avery.

"Oh. Ok," John said turning back to the immense amount of ships around one of the main outposts of the Shi'ar Imperium. It staggered his mind that this was an outpost and not the entire race. They had set up a starbase literally around a star. A huge yellow sun surrounded by a cobweb of brackets and power siphoners that recharged ships, expelled raw energy for other purposes and because all of the planets had been essentially barren, there was no loss of life due to the sun's energy being drained. Of course Peter had explained that the sun conceivably wouldn't be drained in any way for at least a hundred thousand years and by his calculations, the Shi'ar had been at this outpost for over five thousand.

Five thousand years was when they began harvesting a sun's energy of not even their own star system---this outpost was in a linear sense dozens of outposts away from the Homeworld. Which meant that the Shi'ar were old time space travelers just when man was discovered fire. And they weren't even the oldest spacefarers according to the data reader John had spent countless hours reading while they'd been in hyperspace for almost three days. There were bigger, badder and better aliens out there right now mingling with the Shi'ar.

"We're just so…….small next to that kind of civilization, you know?" John shrugged.

"Actually, John, what you're seeing is a "boosted" civilization. The Khan from an alternate dimension is who's been pouring in so many resources in the past few weeks since we were last here. He's given their whole dying civilization a boost of energy, of life, power and technology," Cecelia explained. "That might give us an advantage. So many different new partnerships floating around. We can take advantage of that confusion. Slip in and stop the Marauders and hopefully undo Lilandra's plan."

"It's a very solid plan," Kitty interjected from the other side of the small bridge where she, Roberto and a male Sabine were going over space communications traffic trying to pinpoint Emperor Canaan's whereabouts. "Of course telling us where her crazed brother was precisely might've helped."

"He seems to be both nomadic and paranoid," Sabine judged. "He has made appearances---essentially political rallies and faith building appearances suddenly at close to one hundred outposts in the Imperium within the past three weeks. But there is no rhyme or reason to his arrivals or to his departures. He just pops in and then pops out. There are even speculations that he's brought back a new form of technology from the "Outer Rims" that he was traveling before assuming power," Sabine explained, designated to track Canaan's movements throughout the Empire.

"His allegiance with Khan's alternate universe empire doesn't even have a squeak of disharmony. They've been able to bring relative sanity to close to twenty-two percent of those affected by Cassandra Nova's madness plague. Through a form of gentle martial law and a telepathic healing process. But it's working. If Canaan is killed, by a Terran, especially a mutant one it will look like deliberate genocide of the Shi'ar. They've barely survived losing one leader, I doubt they could lose another without severe repercussions," Roberto explained from his small station. His task had been to get a full history on Canaan and his activities.

Kitty was still working on a plan of action. Which Marauders had been sent? What was their plan? Were they just hurled out here too or did they know where Canaan was? Have some sort of in to penetrate his probably incredible security? How do you save someone that considers you a virus who will launch all of his or her protections against hero and villain alike?

"We need allies," Kitty sighed. "We're too small of a team to do this. Too new in too many ways to take on something so monumental."

Roberto grinned. "Aren't the impossible odds what being an X-Man is all about? What choice do we have, Kitty? We can't even activate an Earth bound Stargate system because of the monitorings Khan has on any Stargates to Earth. Lilandra must've used considerable resources to sneak us here and as much as we may think her plan is self-serving. She didn't have to send us. Political pressures may have forced her to not reveal that as a friend from the past she's committed to giving us a shot to stop an action, a clandestine action, that we only have her word is completely her design."

Kitty agreed. "I would hate to think she'd become so callous with humanity. She's always been cautious, careful, thoughtful as a leader to all of the possible repercussions."

"Then we have to trust her, Kitty. And we have to trust ourselves too. Ok, we're a hodge podge of formal training and power mastery but we're some of the smartest and most heavy hitting of the Sanctuary team. We can do this," Roberto said with a zeal that was contagious. Kitty could see in the faces of the others that they all wanted to do this, to try this. She had been considering how to bifurcate the small group. Taking only the most experienced with her. But now she could see that she had in her hands not only unknown quantities but untapped resources.

"How's Sarah?" Kitty asked of Marrow.

Cecelia shrugged tiredly. "She was mind fucked by a high order telepath out of her natural state. Her natural _beingness_. It seems silly we all shook it off but happiness for us was similar to what we felt. Happiness for Sarah is carnage, violence, adrenaline rushes but the telepathic tampering tempered that so she was lifted and crushed in the same instant, the same time for the days we were held there. It would be tantamount to one of us, someone very demonstrative of their womanliness---say Emma Frost—suddenly being slammed into the body of a man. Something unbelievable."

"Yeah, that would be wild to happen to Emma."

"Unbelievable."

"I can't imagine it and I've seen a lot."

"No, Cecelia, you've gone too far."

"How long will she stay to herself in her bunk in a fetal position?" Kitty asked.

"Until you can find some ass for her to royally go ape shit on."

"Ok. I've been working on a plan that might bring some action to us. We're going to stop looking for Canaan and bring him to us."

"How?"

"John," Kitty said nodding at him. "I'm going to teach him how to shut off a sun."

"Me?"

"You?"

"Uhhh, Kitty…basic science here----I'm thinking a black hole maybe?" Peter said from the entire cabin.

"Yes. I expect something like that. But we're just going to stick our mutant fingers in the butter not smash it. Think of it this way----we're going to create a trail of where Canaan should meet us. He's a fearless leader. He'll follow the suns that blink out as we set up a line of suns that flash off and head straight for the Homeworld. Now, of course, we'll have to make them do it for longer intervals so it looks like----."

"Some heavy shit is heading towards the very heart of the Shi'ar?!"

"Exactly. And I'm betting the Marauders will follow as well."

Manhattan, New York:

Polly Lang stepped off of the express D train at 34th Street and hurried up through the rush hour crowd. Her mind, was literally, on nothing. In a billowing satin blue dress, conservative white lace gloves, a blue silk jacket with attaché case and dainty purse, she looked----odd. But it was New York. The staff of several of the countries leading fashion magazines dressed in fashion meets conservative business styles with the same aplomb that the perky blonde seemed to enjoy. She turned the corner, hurried into a building, her hands reaching into her purse and producing an ID badge to get her past the security guard. With a dazzling smile she stunned half a dozen people waiting for the elevator and boarded it alone, the doors whisking shut behind her.

Once inside she slumped against the far wall, her body suddenly racked with gasps and heaves. The spell was taking all of her concentration to maintain and she had traveled so far----how far she wasn't completely sure but she instinctively knew not knowing was part of her plan. Which made no sense if she dwelled upon that but she wouldn't dwell on it. Something had shocked her out of-----_something else_. Someone was trying to contact her which had reminded her of what she was suppose to really be doing. To think about it all made no sense but this building would help her.

When the doors opened on the fortieth floor, she had her composure back. Or at least her spell did. She walked onto the floor of the executive offices and in front of her stood a tall blonde woman, close to 6'2. Extremely well built. Like a bodybuilder but with very kind eyes. There was something familiar about her standing there so calmly in the black custom fit Armani suit. But not first hand familiar. Again thoughts that both made and didn't make sense.

"You'll need to state your business, miss before you're allowed to come any further," Heather explained calmly. Then added, "I'm security."

Polly opened her mouth to speak and was about to say…_something_ when she decided instead to go through the dark wood doors behind.

"Move. I need to speak to…_him_," Polly said calmly.

Heather shook her head. Then spoke into her jacket. "I'm getting tingles---we've got a live one. Send back up." Heather started moving forward as Polly raised her hands and energy blasts flew form them. Heather instinctively rolled to the ground and came up between Polly's outstretched arms with a solid right hook. Polly stumbled backwards, her entire body seeming to flicker and then she grimaced and waved her hands violently. Several ferns in the corner went from a foot long each to tendrils that slammed Heather against the far wall.

Heather's hands grew steal talons and she sliced through the plant without any effort then crouched on the floor waiting for Polly's next move. Polly looked around uncertainly then with a wave of her hand electricity erupted from the elevator and slammed into Heather. Before she could even shriek in fright, Heather's body had changed to super dense dark colored rubber which caused Polly to pause.

"Lifeguard?" Polly whispered.

"Yes, that's me," Lifeguard muttered as the office doors flew open and Neal Shaara, aflame with plasma energy in the same simple black Armani suit, Thunderbird stood in the doorway, his hands crackling with energy. "She doesn't look like an evil mutant," Thunderbird said.

"I'm not," Polly grumbled but the sigils she was vigilantly stabbing into the air seemed to imply differently. The air suddenly became thicker and finally slammed Thunderbird back down the hallway. With an angry growl he was alight with plasma energy and flying down the hallway at Polly. Polly opened her hands and discs flew out, slicing through the air at Thunderbird then twisting and opening into nets that caused him to crash to the floor.

Polly turned as Lifeguard grabbed her shoulder and turned her about to land a solid punch----Polly placed her bare palm onto Lifeguard's rubber body and sent a bolt of mystical energy directly into her body. Lifeguard yelped more in shock at the pain then the intensity of it. With a casual wave of her hand Lifeguard went flying from a gust of wind into a far wall. There was a sharp sound from all around Polly and large portals opened to a variety of locations----mountain ranges, the Pacific Ocean, a deserted island, a live volcano. The flashes of locations caught her off guard long enough for Slipstream to dive out of a portal and tackle her, sending them into a tumble on the floor. Polly shrieked angrily and kicked him off of her, his attack seemingly useless until the flash of fire behind her singed her. He'd merely been the set up for Thunderbird's attack. Before she could retaliate Lifeguard slammed a solid fist into her jaw and Thunderbird blasted Polly again, this time more concussive force in his blast sending her skidding into a wall.

Polly tried to focus on fighting back but the three mutants stood ready and she could see from their practiced stance that they'd spent some time learning to use their powers in a complimentary fashion. Unless she was willing to launch an all out attack against them, she doubted she could get past them. And her mystical powers seemed so fuzzy. The fact that she had mystical powers at all struck her as even odder.

"I have magical powers. I don't know why but I do," Polly half wept, the strain of reality and her own self-perception disagreeing becoming too much for her to face. She felt like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Slipstream stood behind Thunderbird and held up a portable scanner. "Definitely an illusion. Both mystic and technological in nature."

"It's the wards," a deep baritone voice said as he came out of a doorway down the hallway. "The mystical wards around this building and throughout the floors both attracted her and are stopping her from completing her spells," Thomas Fireheart explained as he calmly walked over to Polly and stared at her.

"It's me…..it's me, Tommy," Polly whispered in anguish. "I'm trapped in this spell."

Thomas Fireheart peered at her with his dark eyes, physical and mystical senses stretched to the limit and then he roared and within a split second his body seemed to rip apart, hair growing, bone mass shifting until Puma stood before her. Without hesitating he stabbed his hand into her chest, his claws flashing with mystical energy.

'No!" Lifeguard shrieked, running forward to grab his arm but Thunderbird got in-between them.

"Trust him!' Thunderbird implored.

"Come out, Elizabeth! Come out, Prophesied One!" Puma roared, his voice both human and animal. Polly shrieked until she had no more breath and then finally the illusion shattered like cheap glass and Elizabeth Twoyoungmen leaned against Puma in jeans and a t-shirt.

He gently moved away her long cascading hair as she spoke. "I was literally trapped within one of my own spells. Fighting---myself to get myself here. To a Place of Power that would attack me, weaken me so that I could undo the spell."

"You're such a omnipotent amateur," Puma chided.

"And you're still an arrogant bastard," she chuckled.

"Friends?" Lifeguard asked.

"Yes, Heather. Elizabeth is a premiere archaeology student when she's not playing mystical savior. She's done extensive work for Fireheart Industries in preserving sacred tribal land. She's one of the few people on Earth All Native American Nations trust to handle artifacts and excavate land."

"Aren't you with the Sanctuary team of the X-Men?" Thunderbird asked.

'Yes, I am. I was on a mission. Meridian. An enemy. I was infiltrating her organization. Xavier thought because my mutant powers are mystical she wouldn't be ready for me. He didn't know---I didn't know that she employs mystics. Many. Dozens. They attacked me by imprisoning me within the illusion of identity mirrors I created."

"Wow," Slipstream sighed. "And what brought you here?"

"The Repository?" Puma asked.

"Yes. The Repository of recovered Native American mystical artifacts in storage in this building that various archaeologists have brought here for safekeeping. Some materials are still too powerful to be left unprotected. I helped set up the wards. Wards are not only defenses, they're like batteries. Or water towers. Think of them as walls of water towers. I was able to come back to a place where I'd stored some of my power and use it to break my spell. The fight helped some too. It was completely unfamiliar to the Polly Lang persona imposed onto my identity. I think Xavier has been trying to contact me through a mental relay system we set up, that would explain the chipping away at my identity from the outside. His telepathic messages would be powerful enough to reach my illusion wrapped consciousness," Elizabeth moved away from Puma, the closeness between them suddenly obvious to her as more than just her own exhaustion.

She glanced at his feral green eyes and he merely watched her, light a great cat would. Coldly, appraisingly, critically. There was also the respect and fear that all her knew her role as the Prophesied One carried when around her. The other former X-Men seemed surprised at best and a little cautious. She'd nearly bested them in a half conscious state, what did that say for her now? A woman in her early twenties in a pair of Gap jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt. She smiled, a bemused smile. She would never get used to the "celebrity" that power brought in the Superhuman Community.

"I have to contact the Sanctuary town. Speak to the others. Explain to them some of the things I found out. It's like a jumble. Like a dream but I have to hurry," Elizabeth said and was lead deeper into the offices towards an advanced communications room.

"Why not just call the Xavier Institute upstate? They can be here quicker. They can put you up," Slipstream suggested.

"No," Elizabeth shook her head. "Meridian is a mutant who creates clones---metamorphic clones that she then insinuates into society. Politicians, spies, celebrities, wives of businessmen, children----she's been doing this for---for----ever. A long time," she corrected when she saw how they were all looking at her. She was rambling. She shook her head, swept back her hair and took a deep breath. "At some point she replaced Charles Xavier with one of her clones. Maybe it was only a few weeks ago, maybe it was ten years ago but Meridian has been the puppet master pulling his every string for some time now."

"Of everyone here, besides you, Elizabeth, I've had the most contact with Prof. X and I've never found him to be anything but moral, upstanding, a champion for mutant causes," Thunderbird defended.

"What if that were her plan? Think about it, Neal. How many of us has he collected, trained, re-directed wholeheartedly into this life? One, maybe two hundred mutants? Now that's not a lot by numbers but consider that all of those have been trained in the upper uses of their powers and to follow a leader. Say he put out the word on a target how many mutants would kill or die for him?" Elizabeth said wearily.

Puma eyed her cautiously. "You're exhausted, Elizabeth. You need to rest. And your line of rationale is bordering on paranoid."

"Dammit! I am the Prophesied One!" Elizabeth roared and the air stilled in the room, the very feeling of everything was suddenly touched by her rage. "Do you think I can be duped by simply a worn out human vessel? It took my own power to entrap me, no one else's. Now if you won't help me you can stand out of my goddamn way but we're on the island where a hundred thousand people died at the hands of Quantum, a mutant once in Xavier's hands."

"What?!" Heather said in shock. "Quantum was an X-Man?"

"Before the original five X-Men, Xavier had many X-Men potentials who for one convenient reason or another never made the cut. They always turn out to be the most powerful though, they end up being huge failures. Magneto, Quantum, a host of others."

"You still to rest, Elizabeth. I will stand by you through this, help you as you helped my people but I am not going to risk myself or my staff while you're at such a low ebb," Puma said forcefully.

Elizabeth obviously wanted to push further to demand more but she finally won an inner war with herself and nodded at his reasoning. "I'll rest. On the plane to Australia. If you four will come with me. Charles is making a visit to Sanctuary but it's really a set up by Meridian, we have to stop him."

Puma glanced at the three former X-Men who seemed as lost as Talisman was emphatic. Finally he agreed and gestured at Slipstream who opened a cell phone and called the private plane crew at Kennedy Airport.

"We'll be airborne within the hour," Puma promised, though he was personally loathe to involve himself so directly in mutant affairs. The Prophesied one though---her very presence and demands were sacred law to all Native people. She was young enough and still polite enough not to pull rank like that directly in front of people but just the rumblings of her power through the very fabric of reality reminded him that he was dealing with the emissary to the Universe and could not refuse her. Though he could temper it for her good.

Sanctuary, Australia:

Charles Xavier stepped out of Gateway's portal, nodded at the aboriginal teleporter then walked slowly down the hill to where Jessica Drew was waiting for him.

"I was pleased but surprised when you said you were interested in a visit," she smiled as they hugged. IT hovered slightly above her head and behind her, trying to be as unobtrusive as an AI could be.

"With Emma compromised for a short time and so many of the more experienced X-Men in the field I thought it best to come lend some moral support," Xavier grinned as they walked down to the town center. His telepathic powers swept over the town's thousands of residents---a few of the psis aware of him but for the most part he found a unique combination of humans and mutants---living in peaceful coexistence. Itw as literally a dream come true to him.

"We're tough," Jessica assured. "I've beefed up security---our Yellow Status will now be our baseline status. The Enchantress and bounty hunter attack gave me lots of scenarios to run through with IT and defenses to them. I've also started actively hiring mutants with greater experience in law enforcement, military work, anything that could help me beef up security here in a more invisible way."

"I saw your request for all of the specs on Sentinels that the Institute possesses. Why?" he asked.

"I think they have excellent security potential. We also have discretionary security budgets from the Australian government and they have excellent reactive capacity. I'm preparing a security outline. Look it over. I'm sure you'll agree. I'm thinking we'll start with them on Outpost 1---hovering guardians with a five-minute reaction time. After that maybe a few sprinkled on the perimeter. Very light. No bad memories. Maybe even alter their visual appearance some," Jessica explained.

"I trust you, Jessica. I trust you'll maintain sensitivity to the feelings some mutants have about Sentinels. But I'm thinking after Genosha the desire for security will outweigh the fear of the guards."


	27. Storm on the Horizon

**X-Men: Sanctuary #27**

**By Kyle Phoenix**

"Storm on the Horizon."

Roll Call:

Phoenix

Carlos De La Rosa

Jessica Drew

Akasa

Slipstream

Lifeguard

Puma

Talisman

Thunderbird

Los Angeles, California:

"The lighting is all wrong!" the assistant director yelled over her walkie-talkie a minute later the lighting was adjusted again. She shook her head, pissed. Everything was going wrong on her first shot at the big time. Music videos had gone from cheesy to commerce to finally art and to have the biggest rock band on the planet risking a five million dollar budget on Dante, her bosses artsy video would either lift or sink both of their careers.

"How's the quartet doing?" Dante asked as he came up behind Karen. They'd been married for eight years, professional partners for twice as long.

"It looks good. Everybody's happy, we're still having lighting trouble. Too much glare but it's all good," she grinned at her husband. He winked at her. They were both excited out of their minds but trying to maintain professionality. "Mick says that he enjoyed your presentation for today's shoot."

"Really? This is so fantastic. Two more days and we'll actually have made a Rolling Stones video! It's going to premiere behind their live performance at the Grammy's. Do you know what this could do for our production studio?"

"Ummm excuse me?" said a production assistant. He came over slowly, as if he would get reamed for the message he had to deliver. Dante and Karen both took a deep breath and then nodded for him to speak.

"Well---ummm----one of the Stones has vanished. He left his trailer to go to the buffet table. He left a note that said, it had been fun but that he was done."

"You're kidding right?" Dante sighed.

"No, he's vanished."

Sanctuary, Australia:

Charles Xavier stepped out of Gateway's portal, nodded at the aboriginal teleporter then walked slowly down the hill to where Jessica Drew was waiting for him.

"I was pleased but surprised when you said you were interested in a visit," she smiled as they hugged. IT hovered slightly above her head and behind her, trying to be as unobtrusive as an AI could be.

"With Emma compromised for a short time and so many of the more experienced X-Men in the field I thought it best to come lend some moral support," Xavier grinned as they walked down to the town center. His telepathic powers swept over the town's thousands of residents---a few of the psis aware of him but for the most part he found a unique combination of humans and mutants---living in peaceful coexistence. Itw as literally a dream come true to him.

"We're tough," Jessica assured. "I've beefed up security---our Yellow Status will now be our baseline status. The Enchantress and bounty hunter attack gave me lots of scenarios to run through with IT and defenses to them. I've also started actively hiring mutants with greater experience in law enforcement, military work, anything that could help me beef up security here in a more invisible way."

"I saw your request for all of the specs on Sentinels that the Institute possesses. Why?" he asked.

"I think they have excellent security potential. We also have discretionary security budgets from the Australian government and they have excellent reactive capacity. I'm preparing a security outline. Look it over. I'm sure you'll agree. I'm thinking we'll start with them on Outpost 1---hovering guardians with a five-minute reaction time. After that maybe a few sprinkled on the perimeter. Very light. No bad memories. Maybe even alter their visual appearance some," Jessica explained.

"I trust you, Jessica. I trust you'll maintain sensitivity to the feelings some mutants have about Sentinels. But I'm thinking after Genosha the desire for security will outweigh the fear of the guards."

"The question of security brings up several of our non-invited mutant guests. Ace, Diamond Lil, a male Phoenix---to name the most prominent " Jessica said.

"Another Phoenix? Not one of the Greys or Summers?" Charles Xavier said in shock as Jessica showed him the young black man sitting in sickbay with Carlos helping to heal the badly injured Akasa.

"No. Joshua is African-American, I don't think that makes him a child of Jean Grey or Scott Summers, though stranger things have happened. We haven't gotten into his lineage yet. Yes, he admits to being from another timeline. His powers are more energy related than purely psionic but he does possess the ability to heal to a limited degree. Carlos is observing him while he helps with Akasa who was injured in the vampire attack."

Xavier was only half listening as he reached out with his psi abilities to look at not just this new male Phoenix but also, more interestingly, the injured mutant Akasa. The psi energy radiating from the boy was like nothing Xavier had ever seen before. It was literally an inverting of psionic "rules". As if the boy was raw psi energy that could be formed, molded in any desired way. And so far Charles could sense that this had happened twice. First by Holy Mother, the erstwhile Brood matriarch, and then similar to the psi energies around Psylocke, created by the Hand, the Mandarin, the Hellfire Club. Xavier wasn't sure exactly which combination of them had performed the transformation on Psylocke but the psi impression it had left on her was identical on Akasa.

Akasa turned, an infinity sign flashing over his eyes; both Carlos and Phoenix aware of the psi energy by-play occurring between the two men.

Xavier, Akasa greeted carefully. I was wondering when we would finally meet.

It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Raphael. I have heard quite a bit about you and had a chance to be most impressed by your aide to the X-Men, especially against Holy Mother.

Yes, that was difficult but it was the right thing to do----to oppose her. I see that now. I didn't want my fellow San Madreans to become monsters.

And your current transformation? The training you've received from the Hand process? How do you feel about that?

I think I wasn't as experienced as I could be to the X-Men. Lady Amara's aid in improving my psi control and fine tuning of my abilities has been immeasurably self gratifying.

_You can of course understand how my past experience with the Hand makes me particularly nervous about the process used to corrupt Psylocke, being used to "train" you?_

_And Melville Industries?_

_Excuse me?_

_The manufacturing companies that supported San Madre for the past ten years?_

_I own Melville Industries._

_And you visited San Madre several times over the past twenty years. Some would suggest that it would coincide with such a large number of mutants in the town_, Akasa challenged.

_I was aware of the large number of mutants._

_The medical facilities at Melville? The advanced genetic testing?_

Xavier hesitated. _I have many interests around the world._

_Have you been encouraging the mutant population in San Madre?! Genetically manipulating us to become mutants, keeping the gene pool isolated, making sure that we never left through telepathic and economic influence?!_ Akasa demanded, their communication suddenly becoming astral forms that were facing each other, slowly moving form the physical form to the astral plane.

_Be careful, young man,_ Xavier threatened, his astral form a hundred times larger than Raphael's on the astral plane. _You know not what you ask. The world is a larger, more complicated place that you can ever possibly know. This is your first foray, a few weeks into the designs of the world in relationship to mutants. I however, have been managing this minefield for more years than you've been alive._

_You can try to frighten with your power, Xavier but I am not the only one who suspects you've been genetically manipulating not only the people from San Madre but also the X-Men as a whole! I have plucked form the minds of one of your students about—"The Control Files"!_

Even as an astral being, Xavier's face registered both surprise and then shame and finally rage. _Which one, boy?! Tell me! Which one of my X-Men knows about the Control Files!?_ He demanded as was about to snatch it from Akasa's mind when the there was an energy shift to the astral plane, tiny rips of electricity ripping through the very fabric of it until they were both forced back to the physical plane.

In the center of the Sickbay an energy well was forming and roaring, like a mad demon was a rumbling voice, both physical and telepathic.

"Xavier, I'm coming for you!"

The Savage Land:

Ace wiped his brow as soon as he stepped out of the aircar that had brought him and his squad to deal with Quantum. Northstar, M, Paulie, Iceman and Nemesis disembarked afterwards.

"Wow. This is truly magnificent," M said as they looked out at the valley below. Close to fifty miles from one mountain range to another, and a small city had been constructed in the dead center. There were several mutants visibly flying through the sky but no one had seen the aircar land in the crevice of the farthest mountain.

"It is beautiful," Ace agreed as he let his telepathy seep through the air like mist towards the land below. "They don't have many telepaths. They've been encountering a lot of resistance from the other tribes as well as the dinosaurs and other wild animals. Quantum and Channel made the error of bringing mutants who had experienced the 21st century to a land that hasn't."

"Why don't we just leave their asses stranded here then?" Paulie suggested.

"That would be a good idea but there are still remnants of advanced technology here as well as all of their abilities and such. I estimate in nine point seven years they will pose a threat to every being on Earth. A probable war will ensue. Which will force mutants and humans to align themselves. Which I'm going to assume is Channel's goal," M offered.

"Then what if we remove simply Channel and Quantum from the equation?" Northstar asked, using binoculars to examine the city closer.

"I estimate at least seventy years before these mutants are a threat to anything but themselves. Their number is only a few thousand and most of the mutations I've been able to see from here as well as the video feeds when they left Madripoor are not of the offensive kind. Mostly passive mutations. This could make an excellent sister city to Sanctuary. Of course that would require some sort of peace negotiation," M said calmly.

"Equations about humans and mutants? Is that all we are reduced to?" Nemesis asked and they all looked at her, she'd been acting strange since her recovery in Paris and return to active status.

"Accelerated intellectual perception is one of my mutant talents," M defended. "I know that they're people. Flesh and blood."

"Are you ready to kill the ones who will fight to the death to protect Channel and Quantum? How many do you estimate are there in total and how many are complete loyalists?" Nemesis challenged her.

M paused and glanced at Ace who turned, white cloak wrapped around his body from chin to toe. "Answer, M. It is a fair and necessary question."

"It's been a few weeks. I would say there are approximately three thousand mutants there. Probability statistics suggests at least two hundred have high level or greater than mundane mutations. Channel would've picked those out, coddled them or threatened them. A hundred, perhaps a hundred and forty who would be loyal. This environment after a few weeks would've reduced that by about thirty percent. There are at a minimum eighty to one hundred loyalists there."

"We're outnumbered," Paulie sighed. "We can do a snatch and grab but we can't get into an extended fight. And Quantum's powers mean an extended fight unless we can slap Dr. Doom's cosmic quantum negators onto him."

"The full arm and leg restraints will take at least two minutes to put on him. Preferably he'd be unconscious but we don't even know if he sleeps," Northstar added.

"Oh, this is a cluster fuck waiting to happen," Paulie groaned.

"We have to prevail. With Kitty's team lost and the others in Asia, we're the last line of defense before Quantum chooses to lash out again. The fallout from his attack on Manhattan has wounded all good publicity and good will we've achieved in the past ten years. A dead Vice President didn't help. The world thinks Magneto is immortal and running around waiting to snap the Earth in two, that's unacceptable. Mutants will never be safe as long as we have the threat of the proverbial other shoe over our and humanity's heads. We have to take him down," Ace said calmly. It wasn't Emma's most rousing speech, but she sensed everyone's morale improving slightly. These were after all tough, seasoned X-Men who'd come through quite a bit in the past six months of being a team. And they'd even adjusted to being lead by a male who'd once been their female leader----there were still jokes but Ace found a few of them funny.

Iceman, curiously silent during the whole exchange as he'd stared off into the distance pointed at a snow peak on the mountain range on the other side of the valley. "I can feel some sort of construction there, connected to the city but being carved through the ice. High concentrates of moisture being redirected. I would assume that they've carved out part of the mountain to create a watchtower, maybe even Quantum's lair. Channel is arrogant enough to want to be above it all. They used water, a lot of it to cut through the mountain internally. One of the mutants must be able to manipulate water."

Ace considered the information. "Is that good or bad?"

Iceman shrugged. "Well, if I can manipulate moisture, including water then I might be able to control that mutant's abilities. If we can get the residents of Eden to be preoccupied we can surprise the bosses. A flash flood?"

"I can help generate winds, turn it into a monsoon of sorts," Northstar said now looking up at the clouds. "If we directed the water up and across at the same time, it will look natural."

"I can help in the clouds," Nemesis volunteered. "My sword can cleave through the skies and cause atmospheric disturbances. It's not particularly useful on the scale I can create but with the two of them in concert---it would be spectacular."

"Sounds good. And then, M, Paulie and I, the heaviest hitters can go in for Quantum hard and fast. The three of us will wait here, Iceman you moisture teleport over and find the water source and mutant. Northstar, I think you and Nemesis would be both ready and undetectable at about twenty thousand feet. The rest of us will await your signal and then move across the valley accordingly," Ace outlined.

Tokyo, Japan:

Archangel stood on a rooftop, seventy stories above the city watching it burn. He'd never seen a city burn before. He'd never seen so much destruction on such a massive scale on such a familiar place. He couldn't imagine how many had died, hundreds at least and still Mazinger stood, blazing sword in hand, a silent destroyer of the city. At least half a dozen skyscrapers had fallen in the conflagration between the giant and the air force. His comm link was down, probably from the microwave blast that the Japanese had tried from a orbiting satellite, that the IRC had informed him had been set up to knock out Godzilla. It had backfired. Literally. Mazinger had seemed to sense it and reflect it off of his sword, the destructive beam cutting back through the city, setting a hundred fires in an instant, disintegrating away people near the beam.

_Warren_? came the faint mental call and as much as he felt like rejoice all he could do was answer.

_Danielle_?

_Yes, we're alive. Battered. Wet but alive. The comm link is fried according to the aircar's computers. The fires I see in the distance----the robot? She said dully, he could see a fuzzy image from her mind's eye of a corona over Tokyo as the aircar moved towards it. He had a brief mental impression of Chazaxa, Chamber, Frenzy and Karma in the aircar with her, speeding towards the ablaze city. Do we have a plan?_

I've done everything I could, Dani, this son of a bitch might take every X-Man possible to bring it down. The air force has struck with planes and a microwave beam that did more harm than good.

_Does it seem to have a purpose? An intent?_

_Right now, he's standing stock still in the middle of the city, sword buried in the ground----waiting._

_Waiting for what_?

Archangel felt a moment of déjà vu suddenly. The very image of Mazinger standing there reminded him of something. A mental image amongst the flames. A dream? No, that wasn't right. He searched his mind relentlessly for the matching image and felt it under the muddied thoughts and memories he had around Meridian. She'd thought this or visualized it or told him about it. But it matched! His flesh actually went cold despite the heat rising from the flaming city. She'd planned this all. She'd whispered to him that he would stand above burning cities, that he'd witness her work, that he was her-----instrument.

"Oh my god! Dani! Dani!" Archangel screamed out loud as he felt his mind unlocking, thoughts seeping into him, knowing, things unlocking in his subconscious and erupting into his conscious thoughts.

_Warren! This flood of images! Slow down! Slow down! _Dani mentally yelled._ Meridian! This is what she did to you! Focus on my voice! Focus!_

Archangel blinked and he was standing next to a control panel built into the floor of the roof. He blinked again and his fingers were typing in a string of codes. Numbers and triangulations were flashing across the screen and behind him there was thunder. No, not thunder----footsteps.

Mazinger had walked closer to him.

To him.

Mazinger hadn't been following him to harm him, he'd been leading it to this building. He was unconsciously Meridian's pawn in direct her mechanical beast.

To this----lightning rod.

The metaphor came to him as he looked at the metal face of the giant as it brought up its sword and pointed it at the sky. Archangel screamed but his body refused to obey his orders to stop, to cease what it was doing. He was actually linking in Mazinger, focusing his power and calling down something----no, aligning something. The building started to vibrate to tremble as seventy floors of generators came on and Mazinger's chest V erupted with energy and the sky filled with lightning, the lightning tracing along the ground from two different directions and finally slamming into the Great Mazinger. The energy erupted up into the sword and the dark metal slits for eyes looked at the building, stepped back, crushing buildings below it, heaving it's sword up and cleaved at the building.

Archangel screamed in both terror and rage until he felt the slamming into his body and then a deep coldness within him. Something cold shoving him to the side, pushing his very psyche aside like a limp pilot shoved out of the cockpit. The faint image in his mind was of a figure in white tackling a writhing snake and a green image firmly looking through his eyes.

Tran and Karma.

Tran psychically holding Meridian's influence and Karma taking possession of Warren's body. He shrieked as Karma tore through his mind in an instance, learning all that his body could do and tearing wings out of his back, leg muscles growing so that he could leap as the wings beat and twisted drove him over the edge of the building. He saw the sword coming down towards the building behind him and felt that they wouldn't make it, that these precious seconds would claim him in what he knew was going to be tantamount to a nuclear explosion. The sword cleaved into the building but didn't cut it fully, just connected deep into it, the energy explosion rising from the ground as Mazinger's energy pulsated from his body through the sword into the building itself.

Archangel's body spun into a building next to the building that was exploding and he sailed through the walls faster than he would've ever thought his body capable of propelling him. In the middle of the building, he came to a sharp stop and crashed into an elevator shaft and dove down it, the walls behind him exploding and collapsing. He felt like he was sitting back watching the twins manipulate him, their consciousnesses processing information faster than he ever could've. Seeing possibilities within his body to lengthen and lower the density of his form, increase the efficiency of his wings, narrow his body to allow him to wind down past cables----he felt like a speeding missile heading for the ground and then he burst out of the lobby elevator wall and out of the glass lobby, moving so fast that his arms acted as shields with their scales. Close to the ground, zigzagging through rubble and debris and dead bodies, a physical roller coaster, he could only see blurs, his body at close to Mach 1 and then he rocketed straight up into a parabolic arc that sent his hurtling out of the city as the detonation behind him happened.

From the corner of his eye, thousands of feet in the air, he saw a beam curving around the Earth's circumference towards Tokyo as the energy from Mazinger and the building exploded upwards. The beam smashed into the explosion and strengthen, increased and seemed to increase in brightness and then impossibly, rather than continue forward it turned sharply, ninety degrees and shot southwest by Archangel's best sense.

Towards Sanctuary he thought in panic, but as he climbed higher and higher, over twenty thousand feet he could see that no, it was crossing India. As he gained greater altitude he saw that it was flashing across India, past Neramani and southward---towards the Savage Land.

And then he understood.

Quantum.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama:

All the students at a small private college had vanished in the middle of the night.

Sanctuary, Australia:

Phoenix's hands lashed out at the energy matrix opening within the Sickbay, sensing the attack that was coming through, an energy bird corona flashing wildly along his body as coruscating energy spilling from his fingertips.

"Carlos, get the others out of here!" Joshua/Phoenix yelled as Jessica, Prof. Xavier and Carlos all shielded their eyes. "I can't hold this force field for long!"

"IT! Full security protocols!" Jessica yelled into her comm link but there was no reply. She checked her handheld module and saw that it was completely cut off from the main comm center link. At first she was shocked at what it would take to isolate a room within one of the most heavily secured facilities on Earth. Then Slipstream came surfing out of the energy matrix and Jessica held back from lashing out with a venom bolt at the intruders, four more appearing. He was lucky that Jessica had so thoroughly researched the extensive files the X-Men had on mutants, particularly past members.

"Back!" Talisman yelled and with a wave of her hands blasted Jessica and Carlos aside. Carlos' hands had barely formed sigils to disperse some of the mystical force or they would've been knocked out for hours. He considered the lack of power he had to call upon without The Beast within him and knew that the power Talisman so casually wielded was a hundred fold of what he knew. He called upon several more mystical spells he knew hoping that he could catch her off guard and slow her down at the best.

"Elizabeth?" Xavier said in shock. The look in her eyes told him that she was deadly serious as she crossed the room towards him. Xavier instinctively raised his mental shields and fired off a low-level psionic bolt at her. Like a child waving away a bug, she dispelled his energy, continuing her stalking towards him, furious.

"Enough of your ruse!" Talisman shrieked angrily. "You die now, puppet!" Talisman raised her hands to blast Xavier but Phoenix slammed into her and rocketed them through the wall into the town center.

"I can't allow you to kill Xavier!" Phoenix said tossing her to the ground from the rooftop. Talisman easily took the brunt of the two-story fall and then blasted Phoenix away from her as he came down, his energy raptor clawing at her.

Talisman was confused for a moment, hadn't Phoenix been a woman? But she didn't hesitate to hurl a mystical cage at him. Phoenix grunted as the mystic bonds wrapped around his body, his eyes flashing energy bolts that slammed her back to the ground. He dropped out of the sky, landing on his knees and flared his raptor again, the bonds slowly shattering.

Talisman waved her hands and earthen tendrils wrapped around him but the raptor ripped those apart as well. Phoenix lashed out his hands at her and half a dozen raptors erupted form them diving at his opponent, trying to tear her apart with their talons. Impressed but protected by a force field, Talisman dug her hands into one of the flying raptors, tasted it's energy composition and then ripped it apart from the inside. Phoenix hollered in pain and Talisman grinned then hurled spikes from her hands that impaled all of his birds to the ground.

"I'm trying not to hurt you, Elizabeth," Phoenix sighed, as he got to his feet and rocketed towards her. Talisman sidestepped him then from her body sprung a dozen duplicates of herself that ran in a dozen different directions.

"And I've got a world to save," Talisman said, though which one had said it was definitely difficult to figure out, Phoenix realized.

"Damn it!" he said under his breath as he focused his telepathy to try and discern which one was the real one before she was able to rejoin the attack on Xavier.

Inside the Sickbay, Carlos hopped onto a diagnostic bed and kicked Slipstream through a doorway as Puma, Lifeguard and Thunderbird appeared. Slipstream back flipped to his feet and lashed out small silver diskettes from projectors on his arms.

"I've gotten a bit more interesting since my last sojourn with the X-Men," Slipstream said as the silver disks slipped in and ut of smaller wormholes in front of Carlos and then appeared behind him, knocking him to the ground.

"You'll have to excuse me if I have no idea who you are, young man," Carlos yelled. "It would seem though that your loyalties have changed."

Carlos decided to not try and evaluate what the young blonde man could take and let his mystical blasts intended for Talisman go at him. Slipstream wasn't ready for the blasts to send him through the wall and was only saved form major injury by the impact absorbers in his bodysuit. He shook his head, dazed and before he could get up, Xavier's psi bolt had laid him unconscious.

"Good work, Charles," Carlos said as Xavier helped him stand up and Jessica pointed at the wormhole, more people were coming through.

"Move fast!" Puma ordered, hopping through the wormhole left open by Slipstream. "That is our only advantage!"

Without hesitation, Thunderbird exploded with plasma energy destroying much of the floor and sending the X-Men out of the back wall and onto the ground below. Jessica had no problem twisting her body to landing on her feet and was happy to see that Carlos and Xavier had rolled with the blast and seemed bruised but not broken by the twenty-foot fall. She looked around and saw that her security squad had cleared off the street but were fifty yards at either end, awaiting her next order. She was flummoxed what to do. Xavier had gone crazy several times before; maybe these X-Men attacking knew something that she didn't?

She typed in several of the security alerts to her variety of programs throughout the security commanders on the perimeters, to keep their eyes peeled and more importantly the network of psionics she'd been able to identify to set up the psi baffling field she'd been working on to actively stop a rogue telepath.

Lifeguard shifted into a crimson colored energy form and dove at Xavier, his psi abilities bouncing off of her mutant powers ability to generate natural psionic resistance.

"Impressive," Xavier said in spite of himself. He redoubled his effort hurled a massive psi attack at her as she landed that brought her to her knees. He was about to speak when Puma dove down and slashed his chest violently, having moved through the raining rubble, without conscious thought, relying upon his animal/instinctive mindset to evade mental detection. Xavier fell back, clutching the semi-deep wounds, trying to evaluate his injuries as Puma moved in for a second attack.

"Not today, animal!" Akasa yelled psi shruiken flung from his fingertips into Puma's back bringing him to his knees. Puma ripped out the psi blades and tumbled to the ground from a kick to the jaw from Akasa. Puma grabbed the young man's ankle in midair and slammed him to the ground.

"I am so tired of being hurt," Akasa roared, twisting his other leg around Puma's grasping arm and flipping him into the dirt as well.

"Your form is impressive but you hesitate, which causes you to telegraph your moves," Puma growled, leaping up at Akasa and barely missing digging his claws into the young man's dodging face.

"How about this?" Akasa said, psi sais appearing in his hands and Puma's stomach simultaneously. Puma shrieked and rolled off of Akasa who took full advantage and rolled on top of Puma driving the blades deeply into his chest. Puma roared, split open his legs and with the claws on his feet, raked Akasa's chest as he kicked him into the air. With Akasa no longer holding the psi blades they vanished as Puma hopped to his feet unsteadily. Talisman had in no way prepared them for the viciousness that these X-men were capable. Akasa dropped a few feet away from Puma and with one hand hurled psi spikes that Puma easily ducked backwards to avoid and came up into the psi rope that lashed around his throat.

"You have begun to grate my nerves with your psi weapons, boy!" Puma said as he grasped the rope and yanked Akasa into his fist then savagely slammed his face into the ground, leaving him unconscious. The slamming fist into the back of his head from Jessica that slumped him over Akasa's body dazed, brought a satisfied smile to her face. Puma's arrogance was in that even with a strong strike force, he still allowed his emotions to force him to fight without someone watching his back. All of his team had attacked individually rather that cohesively and that would be there downfall she thought as she leaped to the rooftop.

Lonoval, Italy:

In a town of seventeen thousand residents, a thousand people had disappeared throughout the night.

Sanctuary, Australia:

Thunderbird felt guilty for having blasted former teammates so viciously out of the building but if Talisman were correct about Xavier their only chance was to keep him off balance so that she could engage him. His time working with Puma had taught him a battle readiness and attack strategies of using his plasma energy that he'd been hesitant to do before. He watched the multiple Talisman's engaging Phoenix on the ground, her illusory distracting technique seeming to be no distraction to his multiple raptors chasing after her and attacking. Of course the surprise in that was that each illusion duplicate seemed to be able to fight the raptors, which still kept it, confused as to which one was the real Talisman, even to her helpers. He decided that the best thing he could do was engage or distract Xavier until Talisman was done with Phoenix.

Thunderbird stepped closer to the edge of the destroyed corner of the building about to fly into battle when Jessica dropped down from the roof above and slammed him through a far wall. Without waiting, even knowing that he'd been a former X-Man she lashed out with a powerful venom blast, shocking him into unconsciousness. Jessica flew down towards where Phoenix and multiple Talismans were exchanging energy blasts, a clear stalemate and found that her comm link had been restored and IT's glowing head appeared next to her.

"IT my link to the security network is starting to fizzle out from a surrounding energy source. Identify it now!" Jessica yelled, watching the skirmish below, having decided to get to the bottom of this.

"It seems that the mystical wards that Talisman initially placed around Sanctuary allow her to move through here and literally shut off time and space to physical interference or observation," IT explained. "I'm actually bypassing the mystical energy disruptions through a preliminary link with our newly created and named space station, Sanctuary Two. Hunter wants to know do you require assistance?"

Jessica watched as the Sanctuary police force secured the battle area for almost five more square blocks outside of the medical campus buildings and moved the mutant students and human residents out of the way. They weren't sure, especially with Talisman and Phoenix erupting energy fifty feet into the air how severe this would get.

"The fact that Talisman has brought aid on her attack on the Professor suggests that there's something she knows that we don't know. Our new Phoenix does not have the faith in her to give her a chance to explain and I'm not willing to let Xavier simply explain this away especially after all of his co-opting in the past. IT, relay to Hunter to activate a transport beam on myself, Xavier and Puma----if push comes to shove we came take him out. However, use the psi-anesthesine gas in the transport room."

"Understood," IT said and a moment later Jessica's eyes were adjusting to the transport room aboard the Shi'ar warship Aerie in geo-synchronous orbit above Sanctuary.

Puma crouched down, baring claws and teeth at Jessica as she landed near the bleeding Xavier but kept a careful distance. She could smell the cloying psi dampening gas that permeated the room and was glad that the resurgence of her powers had amplified her invulnerability to toxins. She gave a quick series of silent commands on her wrist comm pad and the room sealed in a force field.

"Before anyone moves, consider this," Jessica said calmly. "As the administrative head of Sanctuary, including internal security, I've designed protocols even Xavier has no knowledge of. One of them is this one. I beam up the bad guys and expunge them into space. I have a private beam out code. I'll be fine. You can explain why you attacked, Puma, led by Talisman. I'll take all serious dialogue into consideration and I may even expunge Xavier if I judge him to be a threat."

"Jessica----that's a bit barbaric, wouldn't you say?" Xavier gasped through a haze of pain, while wiping away blood from his chest. He didn't want to panic but without his psi abilities with both Jessica and Puma standing over him, he felt too vulnerable. While he and Emma had agreed on Jessica Drew managing Sanctuary, he didn't know her as well as Emma did since she'd been employing her for several years. And Thomas Fireheart had always been a man of his own will and decisions so that left no give or take with him. How to play this out on the floor bleeding?

"Cassandra Nova and Onslaught, Charles. You'll never be fully trusted by anyone with half a morsel of common sense again," she said calmly.

"Touché," he chuckled, blood pooling on the steel floor below him.

"Puma, I know you and your file from your association to Spiderman. You're not a villain but you are a man of morals who has taken in those former active X-Men for altruistic purposes."

"You know of my staff's work?" Puma growled, from a low crouch in the corner, his head occasionally snapping to one side as he heard another sound from the ship. He was the most disoriented by the transport, his entire sense of being and balance being attuned like a cat's to the ground. The artificial gravity and the space outside of the hull was akin to being on an internal roller coaster. Just as Jessica had surmised.

"I keep track of everyone associated with the X-Men, past and present. Everyone."

"Touché," Puma said. "Talisman barely escaped a mutant named Meridian. She says Xavier was co-opted long ago by her. We acted fast to take him by surprise."

"Why would you take her word for it?" Jessica asked.

Xavier answered. "Talisman is the Chosen One. She is akin to a Gandhi, a Muhammad or Buddha. She is a step above royalty. Her birthright and influence crosses all tribes. As a member of the Five Nations, Puma is duty bound to her. I believe that Elizabeth also worked with Fireheart Industries on several archaeological digs and preservation projects."

"Yes, she has," Puma, answered calmly.

"And the gas, Jessica? It is to negate psi abilities?" Xavier asked though he knew the answer.

"Yes, a Shi'ar invention that I excluded from X Corps updates on this starship," Jessica answered.

"Quite. I'm not sure whether to fire you or give you a raise," Xavier chuckled as he cleaned his wounds with what was left of his light linen shirt. Puma moved cautiously to the other side of the room, his nose twitching furiously at Xavier who had no choice but to allow it without showing too much chagrin. "I will now wonder how many places this psi gas is throughout the Sanctuary internal base."

"I sense no duplicity in Xavier, Ms. Drew. My attack was purposefully light to see if and how he would strike. He could of course be biding his time."

Jessica considered her options. She watched both men carefully then keyed in several codes on her keypad and the force fields went down.

Capt. Ari came through the open door, her blaster in hand. "Jessica, I'm getting a signal from Sanctuary. It seems once Xavier was removed, the fight ended. They want to know if we're secure. Are we secure?"

"We're secure. Beam us back down. Any violence and I will activate the nanobots," Jessica said.

"What nanobots?" Xavier asked as the transport effect began.

Jessica just smiled. "The one's that crawled into the two of you as you took a deep breath upon materialization."

United Nations, New York:

The Director of World Security, a position so secret that only two dozen people on Earth knew of it's existence, sat in shock at the fact that so far eight million people were reported as missing throughout the planet and the numbers were still coming in.

Sanctuary, Australia:

"This is an absurd test," Talisman sighed from the Sickbay as Xavier sat on a diagnostic bed being tended to by Carlos.

"And yet effective. Lifeguard's powers act on the ability to both localize to her position danger and initiate a catalytic response of defense to it within her body. By standing next to Charles---as his psi powers gradually return---her body will actually warn us if he's a threat to her or us," Jessica explained. "Not to mention there are offensive capabilities that IT possesses to take him down faster than he could do us any serious danger."

She glanced around at Talisman's guests as well as Phoenix and Akasa---it was an impressive and powerful enough force should Charles get out of hand. "Tell us about Meridian, Elizabeth."

Talisman shook her head. "I've rarely encountered such powerful magicks. It was a cabal of mystics at least a dozen, with specialized areas of expertise. They caught me like a dozen spiders with a web. Every time I tried to fight one, three more would entangle me. My illusion was used against me---it was essentially an all-encompassing identity casing. For all intents I believed I was Polly and they used that to contain my true identity. I don't think they ever knew who I was; my magicks were too strong to actually break. I do have memories though and I know that Meridian is in league with something called Wraith. And they're going to unleash a plague---a psi plague."

"I believe I might have some information on that," IT's glowing green head said cheerily. "My links to Earth satellites boosted by Sanctuary Two's sensors have picked up localized psionic activity over Paris."

"Bisous!" Talisman said. "He told us about a fight at the Louvre. We have to go. We have to stop it."

"I'll lead the squad," Xavier said and all attention turned back to him.

"You're suppose to be the threat," Phoenix pointed out.

"No. I think Elizabeth misunderstood. I am not the threat to the X-Men but to the psi plague. I know how they will be unleashing it and with whom. You see I was the one who imprisoned the plague the first time there."


	28. ShaBoom!

X-Men Sanctuary #28 

**By Kyle Phoenix**

Paris, France:

Bisous detested water but enjoyed his morning baths. The thought of being immersed in his own filth for longer than fifteen minutes was horrifying to him. Several other psis had told him it came from the nature of his psi talents, the instability of water as a conduit of psionic energy and his being on the cusp of an earth and fire astrological sign. He dried himself off tenderly with large Egyptian cotton towels and let his psi senses open to the day much as a person would open their PDA.

There was going to be the capture of a serial killer outside of Lyon today.

Two companies were going to announce bankruptcy.

An actress was going to commit suicide in a hotel.

An ambassador was going to resign before his sexuality became public.

An immeasurably evil force was unleashing the final stages of the psionic plague that had been brewing above Paris for several years in an attempt to bring about a prophesied mystical unbalancing of the primal forces of nature.

A missing child would be discovered near a small refinery unharmed.

Eight mutants would be born---one of them would kill an X-Man one day.

The industrial corporate military complex would take bio-engineering to the Nth level by testing a new gestated mutant/cybernetic being who would use it's psi powers to subliminally stimulate sales of ready made furniture.

_Bisous?_

"Charles? As always you interrupt a good morning with news of doom," Bisous chuckled out loud.

Does telepathy still escape you without close proximity? I could teach you to overcome your fears that hamper your talents.

"Love?" Olivier, a handsome Portuguese man said as he came into the immense bathroom. Noticing the faint astral image near Bisous he immediately charged his hands full of energy, about to lash out.

"No need, my dear," Bisous said with a calming hand to his partner. "It is merely Xavier on his way to save the world. Isn't that right, Charles?"

Yes, Bisous. Even you in your mirthful way are going to help. Where is this Wraith located? Where is the source?

"The Four Seasons, Charles, where else would consummate evil energy reside before destroying the world?"

The Four Seasons,

Paris, France:

"Won't your precious Selene be upset?" Amora, the Enchantress asked, the being sitting on the throne. "I'm sure she had such plans with you? Such desires of power and fulfillment?"

The Wraith laughed, a dark, wet, moist smacking laugh that sounded less like joy and more like eating. "She has her precious isle to pay attention to. And I have a bigger prize. Earth is ripe with many things but it lacks the fertility of Asgard. I could have my own world there and not have to launch such an extended war as I have here. I can accomplish more there and at the same time I can have allies such as yourself aid my minions here on Earth."

The Enchantress nodded, sipping the champagne from a thin flute, her golden tresses pulled back in a severe chignon, a dark green business suit her only nod to fashion. Of course walking into the hotel at over 6'2 had brought about enough stares.

"You've come to me for permission, I take it? You want something I have?" Wraith asked.

"Yes, O' Great One. I know that you have a vested interest in Selene and Lady Amara. I however have need of someone who can manipulate the ground and lava. There is a treasure that trolls have hidden from me in Asgard that would allow me to secure my position now that Odin is dead," Amora said bluntly, her finger trailing along the glass as she considered how easy it had been to cross to this dimension and actually put her plan into action with two such powerful beings.

"And what makes you think that my interests in Asgard aren't at odds with yours?" Wraith chuckled.

"You'll need an ally in Asgard. Unlike Migard, we are many proficient in the mystical ways. There are literally armies, tens of millions that could oppose you in an instant. Asgard is many worlds, not just one."

"The interlinkage is what attracts me to it. I will need an emissary such as yourself. I will unite enough of Asgard to follow my bidding to conquer Earth. Not just through this core dimension but all Earth's through the timeline, all variances, all permutations. You see, I've learned through my scrying that Asgard doesn't shift from timeline to timeline. Asgard is literally stable as a dimension, as worlds. Earth, however is not. I will start conquering from one end of the time stream until I rule so many Earth's that conquering this one will be so easy as not even rate discussion."

"Makes sense."

"Then you will help me with the necessary sacrifice?" Wraith rasped darkly.

"A thousand souls? Surely you know that you will be opposed? This world is ripe with superhumans who will flock here to Paris to try and stop the slaughter, you understand?"

"My dear, the more superhumans you can include in the slaughter, the more delighted I would be. Destroy, my dear and it will complete the Triangle of Slaughter."

"There will be other slaughterings?"

"In the Orient, particularly Madripoor and Eden in the Savage Land."

"Don't you worry about the opposition? Particularly the X-Men?"

"My dear, you don't understand----I've orchestrated for the X-Men to be in all of the locations---they are an integral _part_ of the spell."

Eden, Savage Land:

Nemesis hovered several thousand feet above the village watching, as the air grew more and more humid, Northstar moving rapidly through the clouds causing seeming thunder while manipulating air and wind to create a storm. She held her sword above her head and focused----thinking of the power within it, of disturbing the elements around her and below her. There was a moment when she could see a massive cloud cover settling over the village and then her sword whisked away. She reached for it and was about to take flight when she found herself imprisoned in midair.

There was a whisking sound behind and Ace slowly rose out of the dense clouds with a dark grin on his face. "I've found telekinesis to be such a delicious gift. Sure I could move a small object or two in my rightful body but on this scale---this body's natural abilities coupled with my intelligence on how to apply it has made me superior in ways a telekinetic wouldn't be without years of training."

"What is the meaning of this?!" Nemesis demanded.

"I would call your whole mysterious identity a charade. A ruse perhaps. Or even a sleight of identity but all of my research on you indicates that you shouldn't be able to fly without your precious sword. Now from casual telepathic gleaning I've found mild suspicions of you that are suppressed by a mystical spell. No one in Sanctuary thinks too much about you or your identity. However…….."

"Ace's body is outside of that parameter," Nemesis completed.

"Excellent. We have a simpatico. But now I have to consider even farther into this mystery. Certain X-Men's thoughts have been muddied with. Karma's, Chamber's, Tran's, Akasa's and I'm sure if I did deeper telepathic probings, others. Alex Rosten however had very specific psi blocks around thoughts of you. And after using some of the backdoors I had Frost Industries install into IT, I discovered how he has protocols designed to help maintain your secrecy. Like when you were in the hospital in Paris. He's in on it. Obviously."

Nemesis glanced at the sword hovering close to five hundred feet above them----barely a glittering speck in the sky. No way to call it. How to escape from Ace? How?

"Magik. Are you Illyana Rasputin? From another timeline? Or come back? That was my most fertile suspicion. That pesky sword seemed to fit. A soulsword. But…….it just didn't fit. There were hints from the files of some imperative in the future that only you could lead us through. Something affecting the entire fabric of space-time. That's when I concluded bigger than Magik. And I settled on the X-Men's private space time fairy godmother----Roma!" Ace beamed.

"Very good, Emma. Even as Ace you've proven to have the objectivity and insightfulness----."

"Ah ah. That was too easy. Roma. Too easy. I had that as my hold card choice but then I thought about everything and I did my own search through my head and mission files of people who would've crossed both paths and the soulsword. That is Magik's soulsword, isn't it? Some Magik's soulsword. This timeline, another's it doesn't matter."

"Correct," Nemesis nodded.

"But you were harmed too easily so you're not as powerful as Roma. Or even a scaled down Roma but you do know her, don't you? It wasn't until you came on this mission and I set you up to prove your identity by your eagerness to participate in this part of the mission."

"You set me up during a mission to prove my identity?" Nemesis said in genuine shock. "What about Quantum and Eden below? Is this really the best time to be engaged in this? He's one of the most dangerous mutants on Earth, let's forget this conversation and leave it with the trust that I am not here to harm the X-Men. I am an ally and I will remain in your debt."

"Of course I orchestrated the assignments to bring you here. The plans to separate us from the others. Knowing that when confronted you would either attack or seek to bargain your way out," Ace grinned then with a flick of his hand telekinetically ripped the mask off while simultaneously applying a psi shove that removed the illusion. "Storm."

Ororo Munroe actually chuckled, her white mohawked hair billowing out behind her and down onto her cloak to well below the center of her back. "You are every bit the able opponent and team leader, Emma---even trapped in that body."

"But you're not this timeline's Ororo, are you?"

"No, I'm the Ororo Munroe who cared for Illyana Rasputin when she first was trapped in Limbo. I died in her arms and was snatched from the jaws of death by Roma in that instant and returned to the time when my X-Men originally entered Limbo to rescue her. Roma imparted this timeline's Ororo memories on me and I contacted Alex Rosten, an unknowing agent of Order for her, and we scoured identities to adopt to insinuate me into the X-Men. And finally settled on this one. And it worked as I made several efforts to seemingly slay X-Men who would prove a threat in the future."

"Wayward psis. Erratic ones?" Ace asked still privately stunned that the deductive reasoning had worked out to such perfection to unveil Storm. This Storm. Who was clearly older than the current dimension's Storm but not by more than ten years which was disturbing as Ace considered that the two might meet soon.

"Yes, and those familiar with Storm, with Magik, with the connection. They were transported to Limbo and in some cases duplicates, Life Model Decoys put in their place, obtained from SHIELD through Alex's contacts. My mistake was the temptation to use my weather controlling abilities for something more than flight, wasn't it? I have grown so accustomed to using the soulsword as an explanation for it's own powers, my mystical talents and my mutant powers used sparingly, judiciously, that I got arrogant. You'd know about arrogance, wouldn't you, Emma?" Ororo teased and Ace realized that Emma Frost and this Storm had never made a tacit agreement of peace in the dimension she came from. They were still enemies when this Storm had left her dimension so she had a bit of a chip on her shoulder.

"I take it in your timeline we left off as enemies?" Ace grinned.

"I actually killed you upon my return. I spent several more years leading my team of X-Men in my timeline until….circumstances brought me back to Roma's attention. I arrived when there was a massive nexus, a shifting of reality due to a psionic shock of a great magnitude."

"Genosha," Ace filled in.

Ororo nodded. "While not many Omega level psis died so many lower level ones did. Also enough space and time based mutants that I was able to arrive on the isle after the attack without any evidence of my arrival. Roma is quite thorough. By the time I made my way off of the island, my identity as Nemesis was already solidified by Alex Rosten. I waited another year to when we knew Xavier would assemble another team, to recreate Genosha in the form of Sanctuary."

"How important is Sanctuary to all of this?"

"It's the sight that becomes the capital of the mutant continent of Australia. Give it time, there are more mutants coming than you could ever expect."

"From where?"

"On the run from Warren and Meridian's child in-between the fabric of dimensions. Imagine millions of mutant refugees who need a place to stay now that their home was destroyed."

"Those of Genosha!?"

"Your Genosha died. Mine did not. My X-Men died instead repelling Cassandra's attack. On one day we buried twenty-seven X-Men," Storm said with a dark look in her eyes, close to tears.

Ace nodded knowingly having lost students as Emma Frost to senseless deaths. "I can understand why you would be motivated to come here, to both start again and whatever your mission is."

Storm grinned. "What a clever way of asking why I'm here."

"I try," Ace replied and there was a moment of camaraderie between them and then the air itself seemed to change again. Confused they both looked at each other and with understanding that it was power from neither they looked at the cloud bank below. Slowly the white clouds began to darken and then swirl to the point of almost a whirlwind and then slowly Quantum, still in Magneto's garments but not helmet rose up.

"Did you think you could sit on my doorstep and I wouldn't notice you?" he bellowed, face contorted in an ecstatic rage.

Storm's hand opened and her soulsword was whisked by Ace into it as Ace turned and faced the madman mutant.

"We've come for you, Channel, don't think we're alone or unprepared!" Ace warned and soared at him. Quantum batted him away as Storm lashed out with a lightning bolt that stunned him for a moment as she swooped down and slashed him with her sword. Quantum screamed the psychic matrix between Channel and Quantum's body disrupted for a brief moment and he plummeted back towards Eden.

"It seems he has a weakness," Storm said as she cleared the cloudbank with a thought and charged after him, glad that her identity had been exposed so that she could act and use her powers without fear of discovery. Joshua had been right, Emma Frost would unveil her. His precognitive powers had never failed them. He should be in Sanctuary right now giving them an earful.

Sanctuary, Australia:

Xavier, Slipstream, Phoenix, Puma, Lifeguard, Thunderbird, Talisman and Carlos sat aboard the aircar as it lifted off and rocketed towards France.

"We've been patient, Joshua, however I think the next hour long flight will allow us time to discuss your existence," Xavier said calmly to the new Phoenix.

Joshua smiled grimly, his face conflicted as to where to start but finally he did.

"As I said I am from another timeline. Very close to this one. Identical except for a few small changes, particularly around mystical aspects that have affected the X-Men."

"Which mystical aspects?" Talisman asked.

"Particularly around Illyana Rasputin. Known as the X-Man Magik. I couldn't simply intrude upon this timeline---my timeline is like yours but slightly ahead. By about a year."

"You had to wait to shift here?" Carlos asked.

"Yes, since almost the inception of this team months ago. When you were manipulated into creating this team, Xavier."

"I wasn't manipulated," Xavier defended.

"Yes, you were. By the evil one, the being known as Wraith that we're all going to battle. Not just this group but all of the other squads that are active in the Far East and the Savage Land," Phoenix answered.

"You're aware of them? Of their missions?" Jessica said from the open comm link with the ship.

"Yes, Ms. Drew. Again as I said, this was all something that I was aware of. Particularly how you were all being manipulated."

"Explain this to me, young man. Explain to me how I was manipulated by this Wraith being," Xavier demanded his voice low and dangerous.

"Why did you create the Sanctuary team? Why now? Do even you know?" Phoenix asked.

"Emma and I were discussing how to expand the X-Men as a peacekeeping unit to the rest of the world. To be more global. Australia came about because of the X-Men having used the old Reavers town and the technology being available and able to be incorporated with the Shi'ar technology I possess. It seemed also like an excellent opportunity to open an extension to the Institute in a remote location, safer than Genosha. It was something that germinated from several conversations with Emma and several other X-Men and advisors. We're always looking for ways to further the safety of non-combatant mutants and at the same time train them in the safe use of their powers. I can't say that there is an individual who had absolute influence over the establishment of Sanctuary. It's been a wholly collaborative effort. One might even include Magneto for designing Genosha to house mutants and it's subsequent destruction," Xavier shrugged.

"What about Alex Rosten?" Jessica offered. "Maybe not him specifically but he is the strongest impetus to the actual organization of Sanctuary and that was encouraged from the Australian government. So now we have non-mutants as part of the possibility. How many does that entail?"

Talisman shook her head in recognition. "Meridian."

Xavier looked up. "That could make sense. We keep looking for an internal influence and manipulation, what if instead it was external? When Elizabeth was sent by me to investigate Meridian we had credible information that she has thousands of agents throughout the world. A network beyond our initial expectations. What if it's larger? From what I've read of the Sabine clone that is with Kitty's missing squad as well as the reports on her use of Warren, she possess high level genetic manipulation mutant abilities. For there to be more than one Sabine, both metamorphs we have to assume that she can create many more. Many more."

Carlos nodded. "It would make sense. In fact it would be the answer to why so many of us are entangled into Sanctuary's web. She's not after simply Warren, she's created a Petri dish and forced us all in to it."

"To what end?" Phoenix asked.

"And where does Wraith come into this all?" Thunderbird asked.

Four Seasons,

Paris, France:

Wraith watched the Enchantress from twenty stories above leaving the hotel and get into a limo to go to the Louvre. Ready to wage battle with the arriving X-Men.

The plan was going perfectly.

Wraith's hands began to shimmer and slowly a deep cerulean glow began to envelop his body and then there was a bright flash briefly out of the window.

Meridian stood in Wraith's place, shaking out her deep blue locks. Shape shifting was always the hardest to do on her. With a wave of her hand the room went form a dark cavern, full of tentacles and dark shadows to a high-end suite.

Xavier and his pups were on the way; there was nothing that wasn't in place. She focused her thoughts and touched the psi web that linked her to all of the beings she'd created around the world.

Over three hundred million.

_It's time, my people. The portal will open in less than six hours. You know the places to go, to be. Those of you staying behind, don't despair, we've transferred money, land, power to you all to hold our place for the next phase of our long plotted project. Let the invasion of Asgard by a quarter of a billion of us begin!_


End file.
